Second Sweater Completed

I finished the second sweater today.  I actually finished the knitting several days ago, but I had to special order the zipper online, so I was waiting for it to come in to finish completely.  It came today and I immediately got it sewed into the sweater and so now it is finished and I can breathe a sigh of relief.  Another Christmas project completed.  I want to show the two sweaters at the Holiday Festival this week end.  I will put a sold sign on them, but I want to have them there just in case someone wants to give me an order for one of their own.

The color is so wrong in this photo.  The sweater is actually a very pretty blue, more like Royal, and this looks really gray. It is much prettier than the photo shows.  From the front you can see the zipper and pockets.  This sweater is from a pattern that has the pockets, but with buttons instead of zipper and collar instead of hood.  I have made this sweater three times, each time with the hood and zipper.  It is easy to do and takes me about a week to make.

Just showing it from the back so that the hood can be seen.

Here it is.  I had a really hard time getting a place to take the photo to get the true color.  It would show the blue and then turn immediately to gray.  I finally found that my best place was on my couch.

I also started making the gloves for my grandkids for Christmas.  I am trying to alter the pattern from lady's gloves, but it is tricky to get the fingers wide enough and the right length.  It is a work in progress, but I have finished two pairs.  I do not intend to give either of these pairs as gifts because I have a plan to make them with lots of colors; fingers different colors, for example.  It is going to be fun making them and I am anxious to get them started. Here are the two that I will use at the festival.

I made the dark pink ones first, but they were too small for most of my girls, except for Annie and I think I will make her mittens instead of gloves.  The brighter pink pair fit much better, but the little finger is too long.  I will have to use the smaller version with larger needles for the littler kids and the larger version for the others, trying to get all the fingers the right length for which ever child they will be for.  I may also need to use smaller needles for a couple of them, but that should work.   My oldest grandson will need a bit longer fingers, but the glove itself should fit.  It is always trial and error with me, but in the end, it usually works out.  Gloves are so easy to do and takes only a day to make, so it doesn't really matter much if they don't turn out right the first time.

Another successful day.  I am currently working on a gift for a friend who shall remain nameless, as well as the gift, because I know she reads my blog.  This will keep you guessing Nancy.

First Sweater Finished

I just finished the first sweater I need to get done before Christmas.  It was not without a great many mistakes, take outs, and do overs, but I was able to accomplish the task in the two week time frame that I had expected it to take me.  It would have been in less than two weeks if the first time I did everything was the only time I had to do it.  My first mistake was when I was doing the back and was half way up the armhole opening that I discovered it looked way too long below the arm break for the person I was making it for.  She is not that tall, so I took it out to about two inches below the armhole and reknitted about half an inch and then finished to the top.  I blocked the whole back and thought it looked great.  Then, I started the right front.  I worked up to the armhole and when I was measuring it to be sure it was the same length as the back after I had fixed it, I discovered an area clear down to half way between the lower band and the armhole where I had forgotten to do one of my cable patterns on the last cable repetition.  It was right next to the edge, so I considered just leaving it thinking it probably would not be that evident.  However, I cannot live with mistakes I can visibly see, so it was take out time again. This time, it was two days work and that would mean another two days at least to get the back finished again.  I decided to finish the front and then go back to fixing my mistake on the back.  I finished the front with the same number of rows as the back for above the armhole to the shoulder. Then I went back to the back and fixed it.  I finished it and then I attached the two pieces at the shoulder.  I tried the sweater on to see what it was going to be like as a fit.  I discovered that the armhole was going to be too short, so it was take out time again.  I had to just take the front out at the bind off and add another two inches.  The back had to be taken out back to where I had broken for the neck, which meant about four split rows for the right and left sides to the shoulder.  That was a little tricky, but I managed to get the stitches picked back up without them looking repaired.  It was a little difficult because the yarn tends to split and fray, especially after it has already been knitted, blocked, and taken out.  It is hard to pick up all of the stitch right in the middle of the stitch without it looking split, but somehow, I managed and you cannot tell where I picked up my stitches.  Thank heavens for that.  I also discovered that my first sleeve seemed to be a little too tight.  I stretched it as much as I could when I blocked it and it is better.  I decided to just knit the second sleeve a little looser to see if it would help.  It did, and is slightly looser than the other one, but not so much that it looks or feels different.  I just did not have to stretch it as much during the blocking.  It was so important to block this sweater because of all the ribbing, especially on the sleeves.  It tended to fold in like an accordion until I blocked it.  Here is the final results.

From the front you can see the cable pattern going up the sleeve which consisted of one horseshoe cable in the center and the sides are all done in a three stitch rib.  That is why the sleeves look more accordion than the rest of the sweater.

From the back, you can see the whole cable pattern which consists of three horseshoe cables divided by a rib, and two R/L twist cables along each side, also divided by a rib.  You can also see the ribbed pattern on the back of the sleeve.

I have already started the other sweater I need to get finished.  I am again striving to be finished within two weeks.  The holiday festival is in just two weeks, so I want to have both sweaters on display at my table.  Hopefully, people will see the sweaters a like them enough to give me orders to make one for them.

Wasn't Done Yet

I thought I was finished with the festival items, but I had a visit from a friend who bought a lot of my stuff last year.  She asked if I make dolls and I said that I do, both knitted and machine sewn dolls.  She indicated that she has a friend who has a little girl that has no dolls.  I thought I would make one to have at the booth for the festival.  She can buy it then.  I decided to make a machine sew doll since I have so many things that are knitted.  Here she is.

This doll was supposed to be a miniature baby doll, but I enlarged the doll by using a graph to get it in the right proportions.  I wanted it to be about the size of a 19" doll so that I could use clothes patterns I have for the 19" dolls.   However, I found that this doll has a fatter body, so I had to get creative and give her a waist by pinching the sides in and sewing them tight, similar to what I did when making Cabbage Patch dolls years ago.  It worked.  The blouse has to stay open at the hips, but is now able to be velcroed shut at the top and it does not show because the jumper covers the part that is open.  I had to make slight adjustments with the jumper, but not bad.  Overall, it fit fine.  The hat was exactly as the pattern called for. I painted her face.  However, when I sewed the head pieces together, I did not get them even and so the face was closer to one side than the other.  Also, the ears were way to projected.  I tried to fix the ears, and when I checked to see how it looked, it was even worse.  I ended up having to sew the one side of the face that was too far from the side further in and still make the ears a little more rounded because they were so pointed.  They still look too wide, but now the face is at least in the middle.  Once I had the hair on and added the hat, her ears don't look quite as bad.

The hair, as usual was a problem, but after a little rearranging, I managed to get something close to looking like hair. I wanted to show the back view to show how the hair looks.

I have been working on the first adult sweater that I need to get finished.  I have worked for three days and have the back portion finished up to just where the armhole begins.  It is looking really nice. Still a long way to go, but I will get there.  I took a break from it for two days to get this doll done. Now that she is finished, I will be able to get back to some serious knitting on it.

Done With Festival Items for a Time

For now,  I am finished with items for the holiday festival.  I felt an urgency to get to the sweaters that I need to finish for orders for Christmas.  If I get done with one sweater, I may feel more confident and try to do some more stuff, but for the time being, I think I have enough things to put on display for sell. Here are the final things I have finished.

This shows the man's slouchie beanie hat. I feel it may be too large and if I have time, I will make another a little smaller.  Of course, the headband is for a woman.  both items do not appear to be the color that they actually are.  The hat is chocolate brown and the headband is plum purple. 

This shows the two scarves I made.  The gray one is 100% wool and a little thicker that I anticipated.  If you like wool, it is nice, but I'm not that fond of it.  The other is a lace scarf and was extremely difficult to stay on pattern.  Each row was so different and it took an immense amount of concentration to stay on pattern.  Since I knit a lot while watching young children, sometimes it is difficult to really stay focused, so I did not make it as wide as it was supposed to be, but I think it looks just fine with the width.  The length was what it was supposed to be because it was worked on a circular needle and I used the correct number of stitches per round.  It is made from acrylic yarn. 

This shows the two scarves folded and laying flat.

This shows the detail of the lace pattern.  I had to look hard to find an area where I had not made a mistake.  Just looking at the scarf as a whole, it is hard to see the mistakes, but if you examine it closely, many can be found.  Usually when I make a mistake, I just take it out and start over from the spot where the mistake was made.  However, with this pattern, it was too hard to take out.  There were too many knit two together and knit, knit, pass over stitches and loop overs in a round that it was hard to determine when each had been made and if I took it out it was too easy to lose stitches, so I just tried to fudge it a work around the mistake.  Usually, it looked okay and it was hard to see that a mistake had been made, but I know they are there.  I still think it looks nice enough to sell, so I am going to use it.

So, as I said, I have started the first sweater.  It is coming along nicely.  I am almost to the armhole shaping on the back panel and I have just been working on it for two evenings.  It is a cabled sweater like one I have already made twice.  I have given myself a two week goal, but hopefully, it will not take that long.  I am really anxious to complete anything I start.  I want to be done yesterday.

Christmas Items Finished

I finally got all the plastic canvas Christmas decorations finished.  This year I just did tree ornaments, a Santa door decoration, and another nativity scene.

This shows all fifteen of the tree ornaments with the Santa door decoration in the center.

I'm not sure why the color is off on the third panel of the scene.  It is actually the same color as the other two,

I am back to knitting.  I have finished one scarf and started another.  I will make some more hats, gloves, headbands, and things like that.  I need to get the things finished for the festival so that I can get on to the two adult sweaters that I need to finish before Christmas.