It's cold outside. Go knit a sweater. Or two.

Last year, I wasn't a garment knitter. I was all about the socks and mitts and hats. 2012 was also the year of shawls for me.

Then this year? Bam! I got hit by the garment hammer of Cast On All The Things!
I can kind of see what it is. When I started as a knitter, I could only afford single skeins of anything.  You can make a whole project out of one skein of exquisitely beautiful sock yarn. Your investment was much smaller.
Even if you screwed it up, you hadn't invested a lot of time or money.
Instant gratification.

But really, how many shawls can one girl need? Especially with the weather we're having.
I love shawls, don't get me wrong, but I might have reached shawl saturation. For now.

Side note: I still don't have enough socks.

So I was going to try it. A nice transitional pullover, knit out of cotton. I fell in love with the way Sazerac was modeled, and I had to have it. So I made one. And I love it. It's fabulous, and the cotton yarn is fingering weight, light enough to not be bent out of shape yet.

Then I made another cotton pullover, this time short-sleeved.
Then a Wollmeise cardigan. Then one with all-over lace. And a mystery sweater. And a lace cardigan.

Then I cast on a big, cushy pullover out of Tails DK, the squishy, cloud-like singles yarn I stock in my shop, in a colour I've been trying to create fora  while, a deep red with black overtones.

And then I cast on Sambuca, my latest obsession. It crept up on me. I bought the yarn in the backroom of Bendigo Woollen Mills, just to play with it. It's just a grey DK wool, non-superwash, how good could it be?
Pretty great, actually. I love everything about this wool. I'm going to add Noro to this project, because knitting with Noro pretty much guarantees I will love this pullover forever.
I'm even adding some shaping to it.

How will all of this turn out? Who knows? But I'm loving the journey.

Are you a garment knitter? Or do you prefer accessories? Or something else?

Angostura - or: You can't win them all.

Sometimes, knitting goes your way. And sometimes, it doesn't.
I was knitting Angostura, a veautiful vest pattern by Ysolda Teague, for the Loopy Quarterly challenge. The challenge was to use a yarn containing cotton, and this was my chance to try Spud & Chloe sweater.
It's a lovely yarn, very soft, and nice to work with. it's wool and cotton, a good combo.
I adore the blue, too. I think of this as my maternal family blue. Both my mum and my grandma love this blue.

I love the twisted stitch detail on the vest. My gauge was off, but I thought I'd mathed it out. Thought.
What I hadn't accounted for was just how heavy the yarn knit up to be. Sure, on some level I knew that buying 5 100g skeins would knit up into something weighing half a kilo. But somehow it seems like a lot more when it's hanging from two shoulder straps.

I did swatch, for the record. And I tossed and stretched and stomped my swatch around. Things should have worked out.
But they didn't. The vest is too big.
Even though I went down a needle size and two sizes in pattern, it's still about 1-2 sizes too big on me. A very unflattering look overall.
And I'm not quite sure whether it's just the size of the vest, or the vest itself that's unflattering.
As a general rule, I don't wear vests very often. I'm short and stocky, and vests don't do great things to me.

I think I'll rip this one out and reknit it at a later stage. Next time, I'd knit it top-down and seamless to help with the fitting.
A shame. Those were great seams, too.