Wordless Drum Roll

Voila!

I freely admit it- this pattern  nearly kicked my butt, from the beginning with the Pleated Skirt from Hell, which taught me many new, bad, words, to the sweater, which took me nearly as long to knit as an adult-sized one.

But, I did it.

You'll remember that here's where I was yesterday morning:

With completed but unassembled pieces. Since last night was an American Idol Free Tuesday, I put them together.

 Here is the armhole steek reinforcement. The pattern recommends using a sewing machine, a recommendation I heartily endorse. But the pattern didn't offer to go upstairs and bring the machine down. And the pattern definitely didn't clear a spot at the kitchen table, so I did the steek reinforcement by hand. When I teach this in a class, I use highly contrasting yarn for the reinforcement, but this wasn't for class, and I wanted the stitching to disappear. Which it did. Sorta.

 Cutting your knitting is easy! It's fun! Seriously! No, seriously.

 Armhole open, and lookie- nothing is coming apart. No raveling, no screaming, no tearing of the hair. Just a nice armhole.

And here's the sleeve sewn in place. One thing I do like about this pattern is the facing built into both the sleeves and the neckline edge. It gives a smooth, even line for stitching and the little facing sews down to cover most of the raw cut edges.

See? Nice and neat.

Even for a translation (which was hilarious in parts), this pattern is pretty sketchy. The neck treatment instructions basically say: sew a couple of buttons.  So I tried the sweater on the doll and decided where the buttons would best be placed and then crocheted loops for them. It works just fine, but I'll tell you- none of my editors would let me get by with saying figure it out for yourself.

Doesn't look all that different from the top picture, does it? Except now, it's assembled, washed and blocked.

And this is what it looks like on the proper sized doll! Gorgeous, no?

I made the sleeves a good inch shorter than the pattern called for, and I could have shortened them another inch (which would have made this job a lot easier- knitting Fair Isle with just 48 sts on dpns is a pain- I'd much rather work on 400 sts and a circ). But otherwise, the sweater fits very well.

I had already decided against knitting the shoes, because I think they look silly. And I decided last night not to make the tights because they'll be bulky (and boring). But I've cast on the hat, and I will probably knit the little white collar.

Voracious Reader has the skirt at her house, so we'll have to wait until she gets the rest of the outfit to see the whole thing together. I'm sure I can get her to take a picture.

 It was worth the work, but trust me, I'm not knitting this pattern again.

A needle here, a needle there

I'm leaving tomorrow. For a change, our flight isn't until later in the evening, so though we're departing from Sioux Falls (185 miles away), we still don't have to hit the road until noonish, which means that I might actually sleep the night before flying for a change- it's not fear of flying that keeps me up, it's fear of missing my flight. Evidently, my subconscious assumes that if I stay awake all night, I won't oversleep... It doesn't care if I drift off while driving to the airport, I guess. Anyway, today is an organizing and packing day (with American Idol tonight- btw, I'll recap as I can in SoCal, but I'll also set the DVR here, so if I don't have time to check the performances/auditions online there, I can watch them and recap when I get back home).

In the meantime, I've done some knitting.

 This leftover hat is made from yarn that I bought at Yarnia in Portland, during the '09 Sock Summit. Both yarns have some cotton content, and both are made up of multiple strands (some of which did not get caught in every stitch, as you can see in the scan).This one knit up on size 5 needles. Both of the yarns have a metallic strand, which also doesn't show well in the scan. Not a sparkly masculine colorway, this.

 I always do the exercises along with the class when I teach the Fair Isle design workshops. Above are the worksheets, preliminary charts, and the colored chart for the stocking I designed during the Winter Retreat last week in Asheville. I don't always like my class designs well enough to come home and knit them, but this one turned out rather well.

Don't you think?

This amazing knitted set is one of Malfrid Gausel's American Girl Doll designs (the photo is from her pattern). Yes, you're seeing correctly, the pattern has instructions not only for the wonderful Nordic Sweater and hat, but a pleated skirt, tights, shoes and a collar. Since the upcoming trip is mostly vacation (with one day of teaching in the middle), and all appearances to the contrary, I cannot read all day every day, I am suddenly taken with the notion of knitting this ensemble. I'm using dark green, gold, and white yarn (which means I'll be combining colors in the sweater and hat), all leftovers of course.

I've cast on the dark green skirt (all 270 stitches!) and have already been reminded that it is impossible for me to memorize even a 2-row repeat. But since the inside pleat folds are purls on every row, and the outside pleat folds are alternating slip stitches, it doesn't really matter if I get off a row or not (it's a doll skirt, for crying out loud, and it's not going to be entered anywhere). I figured if I started with the skirt, the rest of the set would be gravy. I'll post progress pics. If there is any progress.

Oh, just in case you want to tackle this one yourself, the Kristen in February pattern is available for purchase and download as a PDF file. The Fair Isle seems straightforward enough, though be warned- the English instructions read like they were printed directly from a translation engine. You'll have to do a fair amount of figuring out what it all means.

I'm not the only one who has been knitting lately. Susan, who completed her very first Fair Isle project in class in Asheville, went home and designed this cool Skulls and Hearts hat. Way to go, Susan!

I'll be back tonight with the AI recap, and I'll probably check in tomorrow before we leave. If not, I'll catch all y'all from Sunny SoCal!