Closing the Door on Sweater Season

Another downside to this early Spring weather (or should we just call it like it is and admit it's Summer in March?) is that the multitude of sweaters I had in the queue have to be sidelined till fall.  Ugh.  That's so disappointing because there is nothing more rewarding than crafting a hand-crocheted sweater.

I finished up these three and put all future plans on hold.  Hopefully when the weather turns cold again they won't have been replaced by a new sweater-making frenzy, since to look through my closet one would think I have some sort of sweater ADD disorder.  Either that or I'm attempting to crochet winter wear for a small army.

First up is Eve's Rib Tunic.  What a joy this one was to create!  The design is by Doris Chan, from her Everyday Crochet book.

This sweater wins an award in two categories because 1) I actually followed the pattern AS WRITTEN, which is a first I think, and 2) it was my first foray into self-striping yarns.  What a challenge that was.  It seems that yarn labeled as "striping" may in fact only stripe successfully when knitting it.  Crochet uses such tall stitches, that many yarns didn't stripe but instead made horrible gobs of color chunks.  It was bad.  All kinds of bad.

So, after trying many brands and many colors and many thicknesses, this plum-colored stuff worked out beautifully.  The key was really long color runs, and a limited color palette overall so any color clumps that do occur kind of blend in.  Thanks to Lion Brand for creating the Tweed Stripes line.  Looking forward to using it again sometime.

When experimenting with the striping yarns, I found Yarn Bee Rainbow Wool (Hobby Lobby's house brand).   I am not a fan of wool yarn, but the colors appealed to me.  The striping seemed perfectly spaced.  I spent some time researching user feedback online, and those who had tried this yarn swore up and down that it was completely washable and would not shrink.  Not a bit!  Even though it's 86.4% wool and 5% mohair,  the added 8.6% acrylic would keep it from shrinking even a fraction.

You can see where I'm going with this right?

Liar, liar pants on fire...it DOES TOO shrink.  My daughter now has an Eve Rib Tunic sweater dress for next winter.

 
I really love how the striping turned out in that dress.  It looks intentional, but it's mostly a guessing game with a bit of hope thrown in that it'll turn out all right.

Now check this out:

This sweater also wins an award: Favorite Obscure Pattern.   What you're glimpsing above is the Sophisticated Swirls Pullover, designed by Doris Chan and published in 2004.  It was published in one magazine issue that is no longer available and the company refused to re-issue the pattern or make it available digitally, no matter how much I begged.  I coveted the photo I'd seen, stalked the internet crochet forums and eBay, and finally, after months and months, located one lost issue of the magazine.

In the meantime, Doris Chan, feeling the pain of all those who desperately wanted a spiral sweater, designed a new one very similar to the original and self-published it.  Isn't she wonderful?  It's called DJC Spirals.

Sophisticated Swirls is based on old fashioned doilies, with that delightful spiraling pattern.  I made this swirly bit of delight into a longer tunic to wear with leggings and boots.  I'm not good at taking my own picture, but you can kinda see the boots there.

This yarn is cheap acrylic, because I wanted easy care, machine wash and dry, lounge around in it kind of comfy thing.  And it's definitely all that.  Caron Simply Soft yarn in their new Lights version.  It's ridiculously soft and airy.   Good thing I bought 4 more skeins in pink, because I want to use it again for sure.

Perhaps the warmer weather will encourage me to get back to Realta?  It hasn't been completely neglected...only 18 more octagons to go.  Plus 24 filler squares.  Plus sewing them all together.  And then edging it.  Yikes.

Is It Spring Yet?

I dunno about your neck of the woods, but around here, Winter never really showed up.

It's like when you have a party and send out invitations and ask everyone to RSVP, but only a third of the guests actually DO respond (which could be another post completely).  It's like we invited Winter to come on over and stay awhile, only Winter didn't RSVP (but that wasn't surprising since 66% of the population thinks RSVP'ing went out of style with corded telephones, apparently), so with no other option we were left to ASSUME Winter would show up as scheduled.

Only she didn't.

And tomorrow's forecast is 70 degrees.  On  March 6th.  In Iowa.

This is Not Normal.  And quite a bit concerning, actually.  Although the weatherman assures me this has happened before (and is, therefore, not a sign of the apocalypse), I remain un-assured, because last time this happened it was the season before the the big drought of the mid-1980's, which was quite a dramatic event of my childhood since I grew up on a farm and rain was Important.

Alas, there isn't much I can do about it, so I'm going to focus on things I can control.  Like fashion.

Since Spring is pretty much here already (at least it will be on March 6th in Iowa) I decided to dig an old pattern out that I've had in the stash for months, but never got around to making.

The Blossom Bag, designed by Amy Butler.  Perfect for spring.

And I got to use one of my new labels on it!   Squeee!

I won't lie.  This was a complex bag.  Not hard to do; just a lot of steps.  The pattern was well thought out, except for the top flap.  The pattern says to make it separately and then sew it on, but I really didn't like that.  It just felt like an afterthought, with extra exposed edges and top stitching that is really tough to get just perfect.  So I modified the assembly instructions a bit and tucked that top flap in between the outside and the inner lining, so there is no visible stitch line at all from the outside.  Much better. :-)  If you've ever made a bag before and had to leave an opening that gets tucked into the bottom of the lining, you know what I'm talking about.  Do it that way instead of as written.

I'm so excited to move in to this new Spring bag!

Edited to add: The Blossom Bag used to be a free download from Amy Butler's website, but it's not there any more.  Maybe it's still available elsewhere; try Google.  Otherwise, the pattern is in her Style Stitches book.

Labels!

I've had these for a couple of months now but I kept forgetting to share with you all.  For Christmas I ordered myself some custom labels to stitch into completed projects.  They're actually yellow but my iphone took a rotten picture.  It's nice to finish a project and have a label to give it that finished look.

In addition to being just plain cute, they also help my kids figure out which side is the back on their pajama pants.  :-)

Yesterday Craftsy loaded the March Quilt Block-of-the-Month patterns.  I'll update with pics once those are done.  I'd love to work on them today, but first I need to catch up on Real Life.  Groceries, errands, never-ending laundry mountain, overdue library books, blah blah blah.  I need a house elf.

If we ever get some sunshine around here, I'll take pictures of the new sweaters I finished recently.   Gloomy winter skies abound.