Finished Object : Owlet Sweater

After getting my yarn in the mail yesterday, I picked back up the owlet sweater I started for my niece pretty much right away. I'm not a big fan of having lots of unfinished projects laying around because they generally make me feel sulky and unhappy about them not being finished, even if it's something that doesn't have a deadline or any real reason to be finished already or very soon. I only had one sleeve and the yoke left to do, so it only took a few hours to get it all finished up.

Originally I had intended this to fit my niece this coming winter and was planning on giving it to her for Christmas or her 2nd birthday this January. I'm not a big fan of the way the sizes are numbered in the pattern, because it confused me. This is mostly my fault, but I also accidentally started following the directions for the baby size 2 before I realized the child sizes were on the next page, and I think at that point I had finished the body and had the correct number of stitches for a child size 2, which is for 5-6 years old. I added quite a bit of length onto the body because my niece is pretty tall but thin, so as she grows I figured she could wear this as a dress or tunic, then later as a sweater. I'm not sure when I'll end up giving this to my niece, but it's much better that it ended up too big rather than too small! I've read in a few project notes that the sizing for this tends to run small, so maybe she'll be wearing it sooner rather than later after all.

Overall this was enjoyable to knit, I don't usually do bottom up or yoke sweaters so it was something different, although I would have preferred it to be top down (and I'm sure it wouldn't have been too hard to modify). If I made this again, I would just bind off the underarm stitches and then mattress stitch the hole closed, because my grafting wasn't looking great and I just ended up doing a three needle bind inside out anyways. I also wish the pattern could have provided more specific directions in some places, especially for the yoke decreases where it just said to decrease the stitches evenly within the round instead of giving actual stitch counts.

I just did the button eyes on one owl, and did them in gray because I think white would have been too stark and jumped out a bit too much. I tried to weave in the ends really securely, but I am always paranoid that they'll un-weave themselves... hopefully that doesn't happen with this sweater!

I think the finished product is very cute, I like the color and I think it will be a good color for my niece and hopefully something she can get a lot of wear out of! For more specifics on this project, please check out my project page on Ravelry!

KnitPicks Yarn Haul!

I was pretty surprised this morning when my KnitPicks order arrived this morning two days before it was supposed to be here! Normally they're not too fast shipping-wise (I think my order was processing for three or four days before it shipped) and I am pretty obsessive about tracking all the things I order online so that I know when to expect them.

For some reason (to save on shipping costs, most likely) my yarn was really crammed into a tiny box. I really don't mind that much, but several of the skeins were crammed in the box to the extent that their labels got really crinkled and messed up. Not a huge deal, but if I were going to give the yarn to someone else as a gift I would have been a little upset.

My order this time around was mostly Brava, their acrylic yarn, and I plan to use it to make Christmas gifts and toys. Brava is really soft for an acrylic yarn, and it doesn't have that shiny or squeaky feel like Caron Simply Soft and many other acrylic yarns do. I also got some Wool of the Andes Bulky Bare to dye up and then knit into slippers for gifts. The two little baby skeins are Comfy fingering weight in a really pretty blackberry/deep purple color. I think it'll make a nice airy summer/spring shawl!

I've been waiting to make a KnitPicks order for a while now because I need some more yarn for a few WIPs, namely my Cafe Au Lait cardigan and the owlet I'm making for my niece. I wanted to wait for a good sale since I'm pretty stubborn about buying things full price and I had a hunch they were due for a sale soon. They were out of the Comfy fingering weight yarn in the gray that I needed for my cardigan, but the Brava bulky I needed for my niece's sweater was in stock and on sale, so I can finally finish that up. 



I was a little disappointed with this KnitPicks sale, their email proclaimed "up to 50% off over 700 yarns!", but most of the yarns I was interested in were only 10-20% off. The sale they had around Black Friday/Cyber Monday was much, much better, but there were some decent deals in this sale. 

                              

I'm pretty excited to add this yarn to my stash and start knitting and dyeing with it!

About Me!

Hi there!

My name is Emily, and this is my place for sharing my knitting, crochet, and general yarn-y adventures!

I taught myself to knit in 2010 after picking up a learn-to-knit kit from Goodwill. Since then, I’ve been knitting pretty much every chance I get – watching TV, in the car, at work, while reading… you get the idea!

I love to knit sweaters and garments the most, but amigurimi and other cute little things is probably second and occasionally I’ll make other small things and gifts.

Other than knitting, I play the guitar and piano, do other crafty things, garden, read a lot, play the occasional video game, nerd out about Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Marvel, and spend time with my lovely pets (ball python, cat, and ferret).

You can check out my ravelry page here (feel free to add me as a friend!) and my pinterest here! If you have any questions or would just like to chat, don’t be shy!

Welcome to Emily's Knitted Whimsy!

Hello everyone!

My name is Emily and I’m super excited to be starting my own knitting blog, something I’ve been considering for awhile.

I plan on posting my finished objects and things like yarn organization, book reviews, tutorials, and hopefully lots of other knitting and yarn related goodness!

Please check out my about me page if you’d like to know more about myself and my knitting background.

I’m looking forward to sharing my knitting adventures with you all!