Sweater WIP Week - Tuesday: Granite

Yes, it's true, I never did finish it back in May in the Granite miniKAL. I did finish the back, though. Now all I have left to knit is the front and the neckline. What's holding me back?


I still don't know if I want to keep it as a sweater or make it into a cardigan.

Pro, sweater: the front of the sweater looks very nice, especially the detail with the increases towards the neckline. Here's a link to the FOs on Ravelry.
Con, sweater: The neckline is quite open, and I'm afraid I won't use it enough, since I usually want a winter-y sweater to warm my neck...

Pro, cardigan: the open neckline will work well for a cardigan.
Con, cardigan: Will a reconstruction of the front take away some of that design element that makes the sweater look so pretty?

What do you think?

Sweater WIP Week - Monday: Still Light Tunic

I think it's time for a Sweater WIP Week! I happen to have 7 sweater WIPs (don't ask!) at the moment and that fits nicely with a post about each of them each day of the week, doesn't it? That doesn't mean I'll be knitting on that particular WIP that day, though! :)

Today I'll show you the one that's closest to becoming an FO. Very close in fact!



This is the Still Light Tunic designed by Finnish designer Veera Välimäki. I think the brilliant design deserves that I provide you with a link, where you can see the finished, blocked version... :)

As you can see, I have only one sleeve left to go, and I trust that it will be done and blocked within the next few weeks. I have tried it on and it looks promising! At a first glance, this may look like a never-ending project, being endless stockinette on 2.5 mm needles (that's what I used, but I think the pattern says 3 mm), but I've actually been fairly quick with this one, mainly because July and August had a lot of roadtrip knitting, and nothing could be more perfect for that than this one.

Destash...

I'm having a mini-destash of some luxurious yarns over on Ravelry...

Four little baby vests

During my two weeks of summer vacation I've been working on the two WIPs I brought. They [i.e. Still Light Tunic and 80's Lace Sweater] both require a lot of knitting, so none of them are finished yet despite the effort. Fortunately, I also brought four Rauma Finull oddballs left over from another project that I wanted to clear from my stash. One blue, one pink, and two reds. Here's the result: four lovely little baby vests. All different, but all simple and with a one-button closure on the back.

Pattern: My own - very simple, but with short rows to increase the height of the neck and thus improve the fit.
Yarn: Rauma Finull, colours 439, 445, 448, and 456. One of my all-time favourites, not least because of the colour range. I used approx. three and a half 50 g balls for these four little vests.
Needles: the brilliant Knit Picks Harmony wood dpns, 4.0 mm - the large needle size gave a nice and soft fabric.
Ravelry link: here.

What makes a hand-knit a favourite?

I've been thinking a bit about this, having found a new favourite among my recent FOs during the past two weeks of summer vacation: The Twenty Ten Cardigan [blog link | Rav link]. I just love wearing it! The fit is great and so is the yarn and its complex colour. And all those red buttons make me smile :)

Other favourites in my (rather overwhelming) sweater pile are my Cabled Sweater Dress [blog link | Rav link], Pine [blog link | Rav link], and the Cabled Spiral pullover [blog link | Rav link] - long-time readers will know this by now :)

I'm very happy to have found a new go-to sweater, and I'm asking the headline question because I'd like more such successes in the future. Knitting a new sweater, I very often have a feeling whether it's going to be a favourite or not, but I can never be quite sure. One could also ask whether sweaters I think are not going to be favourites should frogged immediately, but I think you need to have some not-quite-favourites in order to have the favourites. Kinda lies in the definition, doesn't it?

So what makes a sweater/cardigan/etc. a favourite for you? And can you tell before finishing it?

On a related note, I'm impressed with the new fall Twist Collective. Having been quite disappointed with printed as well as online publications lately - thinking that it's all been seen before or that it's just plain boring - I'm very happy to find one cardigan I need to cast on for immediately (that's Acorns - I also love how they've set up this photo shoot) and another cardigan I think I might make (that's Cityscape - I think I'd make it in black rather than white, though). I'm also happy to see some new or at least more interesting ideas in the other designs, e.g. Kiloran, Red Oak, and Stratocumulus. And as usual with Twist Collective, the photography is pleasing.