All I Want to do…

All I want to do… is knit!

With the crisp fall air coming into Chicago, knitting is all I feel like doing as of late.  I come home from work, feel a bit chilly and sit on the couch to decompress, and knit.  But more often than not (lately) I’m on the couch the remainder of the evening watching Little Dorit or North & South while knitting.  heh

While I somewhat feel guilty for not working on my sewing, I’m just in a phase.  Felix heartily approves of my couch/knitting phases as he thinks I *play* too hard when I come home from the work day.

I’ve been making decent progress on my Wallis Pleated Cardigan:

I have the right front bodice and the back done and have to re-knit the left front bodice.

I pinned the one front and back together to check the fit… and it’s a bit on the snug side.  I was looking to make a layering cardigan for the winter but the fit ended up more of a blouse-cardigan style.

Seeing how much I’ve already knit up, there’s no point in me re-knitting this whole cardigan to add in some more positive ease.  I’ll just plan on making another cardigan later this season, most likely in a heavier-weight yarn, like a dk.

In addition to the Wallis Pleated Cardigan, I’ve also been working on a long-time project, the Sugar Maple Shawl.

I saw the Sugar Maple Shawl sample 2 or 3 years ago at Stitches Midwest; I fell in love with it and bought the pattern along with the coordinating yarn.  I likewise started it 2-3 years ago.  It’s one of those projects where I’ve just taken it with me on long plane rides or worked on it when I was between projects.  I haven’t been actively trying to complete it; it’s a nice, mindless knitting pattern I can do anytime, anywhere.

As I paused my Wallis Pleated Cardigan, once again I picked up this shawl WIP.  I knit it during my commute for a week and saw how much I had gotten done.  I realized if I just spent another week or two knitting it up, I could be all done!

So, I’ve set my Wallis Cardigan on hold for the moment and have dedicated my knitting time to finishing this shawl once and for all.

I picked up & knit the whopping 325 perimeter stitches that make up the ruffle border on Sunday!  I am working those on 2 different circular knitting needle sets as I couldn’t fit all of the stitches on one needle (and refused to go buy a specific circular needle set just for this one task.)

The border should measure 4 inches when it’s all done.  As of right now, it measures just a hair over 2.5″ and I’ve nearly used 1 whole skein of yarn on it!  For perspective, I was able to knit the entirely of the shawl body with 1 skein and it measured 12″ wide by 62″ long!  This is one dense ruffle.  I’m going to have to use my third skein of yarn just to get to the 4″ width on it.  heh

And lastly… my Fall for Cotton project is sitting on my sewing table, just waiting for me to complete it.

I’ve pretty much lost my sewing mojo as of late while I’ve been focusing on my knitting.  It’s the last week for projects so I’m going to have to force myself to work on it.  :|

I only have 4 steps until it’s completed, too!

  • Sewing the shoulder straps together
  • Joining the bodice to the skirt
  • Inserting a zipper
  • Hemming

I can probably knock this project out in 2 or 3 evenings, I just have to get my mojo back.  I think part of the problem with this is that I’m not 100% happy with the fit of the bodice.  It’s *just okay*.  The fabric is amazing, but the fit isn’t wow-ing me and I’ve done all I can to improve it.

Is there anything you gals can recommend to get my sewing mojo back online?  Or do you just ride it out and when it comes back, it comes back?

In: Knitting

Blogger for 6 years and counting, I am a passionate creator who loves to tinker.

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