The Wee Fair Isle Set

It has been a long time coming, but it is finally finished. I can't believe how long it has taken me to get it done. There really isn't that much to it, but it has taken f-o-r-e-v-e-r.

Now that it is done the babe just fits into the sweater. I should have knit the 12 month size not the 6 - 9 month size. He is only 4 months old, but I never expected to have a chunker. ;) James was always on the high side of the the growth charts on everything, but Isaac has gone above and beyond. He is currently 4 months old and is in 6-9 month clothes. I never would have guessed that the 6-9 month size would have been just fitting him this winter.

So I guess he will only get a few wears out of all that work. Note to self: Make the clothing much much bigger than you think you should make. We are going to take a family photo like we do every year in front of the tree, so I plan to have the boys in their sweaters to get, hopefully, a good picture of them in it. I plan to sock Isaac in the outfit and take some pictures for memory sake. ;)

As for James' sweater... it is the fair isle that I knit for him a few years back. It fits him perfectly this year other than the neck band was too tight. I ripped out the old one and put in a new one on larger needles and it fits just fine. I always thought that the neck hole was a bit on the small size, but at the time I just wanted to get it done so that he could wear it.

Ok, so I didn't get the mittens done. Actually just started them today. But the bulk of it is finished and if the mittens don't get done it isn't the end of the world right?

I am excited to see the 2 of them in them together. Isaac's is a dark blue, but James' is a deep navy almost black.

The wee fair isle set sans the mittens that are not done yet.



A close up of the sweater.




James' sweater.




James' and Isaac's sweaters together.


If I don't get back here to post, for those of you who celebrate Christmas - a Merry Christmas to you! For those that do not - Happy Holidays. :)

Can I Get a Drum Roll Please?

It is FINISHED!!! The wee fair isle for James is done.

Before I show you the finished product I want to show you what the neck and shoulders are supposed too look like.

Here I have it laying out on our extra bed. I am still working on the collar ribbing. Our kitten had to get in the picture too. She is so funny.




Oh for those of you who keep asking me if we have given her a name yet.... the answer is Yes. I have been wanting something that went along with the fact that she loves to cut/chew my knitting yarn all the time. Does anyone know why a cat will do this? It gets rather annoying. Anyway back to the name thing. I found a name that means to snip. It is German. So her name is now Schnitzel. Kind of fitting don't you think?




Here is a close up of the collar ribbing. Still needing 2/3ds knit. I was so close that I could taste it and it just wasn't knitting up fast. I kept measuring and measuring and I swear I was knitting into that black hole of knitting. I don't care how many rounds that I knit the measurements never changed.

















And now the moment some of you have been waiting for...........




The FINISHED fair isle!

These pictures are fairly true to color. They were taken with a flash at night in the house so they are a bit washed out. Also it applies to this months colors in Project Spectrum.














It still needs a good blocking. The fair isle patterns are tighter than the rest of the sweater. So I am hoping that it will block out . I guess we shall see.














I socked it over James' head at my In-Laws after I had finished it. Doesn't look too happy does he? He didn't get much of a nap and the collar is a little tight going over his big melon.


















He got over his torment when he heard the clock go "Kee Koo" as he says. The In-Laws have an old coo coo clock that he loves. That would be what he is pointing to.


















Not sure if you can see how big the sweater actually is on him, but if you look closely at the bottom of the sweater the bottom fair isle section is missing. So it is plenty long on him. Also the shoulders look like he has football padding on. I am hoping that he will be able to wear it again next year. That is if his head doesn't grow much more. :)


















You can see the shoulders better in this picture. Kind of reminds me of the shoulder pads in the 80's. After a good soak/wash and block it might soften up. Don't look at the mess behind him.

James wanted to go out and play in the snow so I put his sweater on to keep him warm. I know really it was just because I wanted him to wear it and keeping him warm is just a good reason to get him to wear it.

















Where do I go from here? Well I have a few UFOs that I really would like to get finished so that they are no longer haunting my dreams. I could really use my gloves right now if they were finished.

Stay tuned to see what is next.

Ahhh CRAP!!!

I have been cooking along on James' sweater. I have been having so much fun knitting this. I think I am going to miss it when it is actually done.


















The sleeves have knit up nicely. I don't know what force was in effect when I was knitting the second sleeve, but I had to rip it out at least 4 times. It was completely crazy. I couldn't seem to follow simple k2, p2 for one round then k next round and repeat. Sounds easy eh? Yeah it is, but my mind refused to function for it so the cuff was ripped 4 times then the fair isle sections were ripped at least 2 times. The first sleeve went so smoothly, I just have no clue what happened with the second. It was so aggravating. I pushed on and made it through finally.













How cute is this going to be when it is done?! Should I be this excited about it?



















So now that both sleeves are done and the arm holes in the sweater are large enough to fit the sleeves I joined the sweater back into the round. I knit a few inches then did the decreases for the neck. I picked up the stitches for the neck and it just wasn't working for me. It looked puckered and huge. So I decide to sew on the sleeves. I have done sleeves and sewn my knitting together before, so not a problem right? WRONG! No matter how hard I tried you could see the sewing thread on the outside. RIP, RIP, RIP, RIP....... Out came the sleeves, more times than I can count. OK fine, I will sew in the ends that are in my way and will need to be done anyway. That part went ok. Whew at least one thing went right.






After many tears of frustration I headed off to my FNSLYS to get some much needed help on Thursday. The pattern calls for you to whip stitch the sleeves in and I was instructed to use the mattress stitch instead after a few failed attempts at the whip stitch still showing the yarn on the outside. The mattress stitch worked so much better. So I had the first sleeve on and something just didn't look right.

Can you guess where I am going here?????

Remember I rejoined the sweater in the round after the sleeve holes?.

That is where I went horribly wrong. Instead of making shoulders I was making one HUGE neck hole. I tried to convince Christina that James has a huge head and shoulders in a sweater were over-rated, but she just wasn't buying it.

So I am sure you know what happens here right?. *SIGH*

One sleeve was sewn in so it had to partially come out. We were going to just cut out the top part, but the piece of yarn that was cut wasn't the seaming yarn. AHHHHHH!!! I felt the urge to pass out. I tried to convince myself that it was all ok, but my mind kept screaming NOOOOOOO. "People do things like this all the time and can fix them without a problem." Still feeling faint. "Don't worry you are going to have to rip back past the cut point anyway, it will all be ok." Faintness still hanging around. "Just be thankful that it wasn't the fair isle part" Ok now I am coming around. I know that Christina was talking to me in there somewhere too, but my mind was screaming at me so much that I couldn't tell you her exact words, but I know she kept reassuring me that it would all be ok. After a few deep breaths, Christina's reassurance and me knowing deep down that it was ok, I was able to get past it and rip it back to where it needed to be.

Before I left that evening I had the front knit back up to where it needed to be and the neck shaping done. I also only had a few more rows to go on the back to do before I could do a three needle bind off for the shoulders that are "supposed" to be there.

I am really close to being done. Maybe in the next few days I will have pictures to show you of a finished sweater.

Coming Together Slowly

Here we have the completed front fair isle. I still have some more rows of the plain old blue to knit then it will be placed on some waste yarn so I can work on the back fair isle section.
















Here is a different angle of it. It is a really cool pattern and I just love to watch how it slowly forms as I am knitting.





















I will do the sleeves before I work any farther on the front or back so I will have a better idea of how much plain blue to knit before I join the top back in the round again.
















I am really loving the way that this is coming together. So far the pattern has been easy to read and straight forward. I have read ahead though and the neck shaping and such and it seems a but cryptic. I will have to read it more carefully when I get to that point and see if I can go step by step to understand what they are trying to say.














At the rate that I am going I should have it done by the end of winter. LOL

Here is the beginnings of the first sleeve. I will knit in blue for quite some time then start another fair isle pattern before adding a few more rows of blue then casting off.







































This first sleeve is coming along nicely. I am so anxious to get this finished.

Warm Fair Isle, Cold House

UPDATE: Kevin was able to fix the furnace. He was able to get it fixed Friday night. So we are warm again. Thanks for all the warm wishes. Keep your fingers crossed that it is fixed.

Slowly the little Fair Isle Sweater is coming along. One day it will grow up into a big sweater.

I am really enjoying knitting this. The Fair Isle parts are so much fun. I have finally found my groove again with the 2 handed/2 color knitting. It took me a while to get back in that groove and I am sure that some of the people at my FNSLYS (Favorite No So Local Yarn Store) were wondering what I was thinking knitting something so challenging. It looked like I had two left hands and neither of them knew what the other was doing. Guess that is what happens when you haven't picked something up for over a year.
















I do have my groove back. If you saw me knitting on this and thought "Wow what a mess that girl is". I promise it and I don't look like that now. LOL

I really wish I had more time to work on it. Between vet appointments, Dr. appointments, James' new found love for books again, (if he is awake I have to read his entire mass quantity of books until it is either nap time or bed time. I swear that I have them all memorized. Kevin laughs at me because I can read quite a few of them without even looking at them.) the normal daily household cleaning and such I just don't have much time to work on it. Hopefully things will settle down in a while and I can get back on a routine again and some knitting time will be included in there some where.



















Currently we are trying to stay warm. I had to call Kevin this morning to let him know that the furnace wasn't working! Currently we are at 50 degrees in the house. Burrrrrr. Kevin took a 1/2 day to hopefully fix it. He had to go and get a part that USED to cost $7 that now costs $75! Sadly at the moment it doesn't seem to be working. I just thank God that we have a heater (oil filled electric heater) hooked up in James' room. At least he will be warm. If we don't get it fixed I will be packing up and either heading to the In-laws or my Mom's. Please wish us luck that Kevin can fix it. We don't have the $$ to pay for some one to come in.

My feet are cold. Guess it is time to add another layer of socks. *sigh*

Visiting an UFO

Last year I started a fair isle sweater for James. Sadly it ended up getting put in the knitting basket for later knitting and I just never picked it back up. I was learning so many new things in the land of knitting and I was so excited about it all that I was trying to knit everything at once. Which means that my old projects were neglected.

I am using the pattern from the Dale book # 149. It is this one on the front cover. Of course I am using different colors and added a few stripes in the pattern. I have held up what I have finished so far to see how it will fit the wee one and it is going to be big still. I am so glad.



















THIS is where I stopped last year on it. So I picked it up from there and have started to make some progress on it.
















It is no longer being knit in the round. Call me a wimp, but I just can't bring myself to steek it. I am not that brave yet and my sewing skills, or lack there of, leave a lot to be desired that is for sure. So I split it for the front and back.















I am a little farther than this on it, but I need to get pictures and all that fun stuff.

I am so excited about it again and I would love to be able to get it finished so that James could wear it this winter some time, if the weather would cooperate that is.

I am hoping to revisit all my UFO's that have been ignored. I really need to get some of them finished. Heck I have a pair of gloves that only need a few fingers knit in and then the ends woven in. I have a problem with being monogamous with my knitting. I think I need to work on that. ;)