FO: Wildflower Cardigan

Y'ALL.

IT'S FINISHED.

Exactly 4 months to the day that we started this project, we met up and celebrated the completion of probably the single biggest crafty undertaken I've ever embarked upon. This was a big deal.

But we finished!

 Left to right: Jaimie, Karen, Willow, Therese

We went to a celebratory lunch at the Melting Pot (fondue = delicious!) and took pictures at Jaimie's house (special thanks to her son Nick for actually pushing the camera button on our phones). Confession: I was sewing the buttons onto my sweater moments before running out the door to make our lunch reservation! But here's some close-ups of the "finishing process" including how I finally figured out sewing on my pocket linings and close-ups of my adorable buttons.

The main seams - setting in the sleeves, the sides, and the sleeves (originally knit flat) - were all done in mattress stitch. It took me a bit to figure out how to do it correctly because I was not familiar with how to do mattress stitch in knitting. I've done it in sewing, but there's a particular way to do it when working with hand knit material. Jaimie opted to crochet her seams together which actually looked fine. My concern was because my yarn wasn't as dense as hers that crocheting the seams would add unwanted bulk. They turned out fine either way.

Clockwise from top left: Inside of arm hole, side seam close up, outside of arm hole, large view of side seam.

As for the pockets, I just whip stitched them onto the back of my pocket front. They show a bit in the front but it really is unavoidable. I take consolation in the fact that it's not super noticeable while I'm wearing the sweater.

Top: Backs of my pockets; Bottom: Fronts of my pockets

 

I intended to sew on the buttons with the yarn I used, but I was rather concerned that I wouldn't be able to do as many stitches as I usually do with the added bulk of the yarn. I used light yellow crochet thread instead and it worked fine. I absolutely adore these buttons. I feel like they really make the sweater and I like the delicate design on them for a tiny bit of added visual interest. For those wondering, these buttons are by Organic Elements, natural coconut buttons number 2706. They can be found HERE because for some reason the manufacturer's site is "suspicious and not to be trusted." Okay, Firefox, thanks for keeping the internets safe. I bought mine at JoAnn's.

The sleeves are a little too tight for me to wear this cardigan with anything with sleeves, so it's gotta be sleeveless dresses or tank tops (which is what I wear most of the time anyway). The entire sweater is a bit more snug than I really wanted it to be but overall I'm happy with the fit. It has it's fair share of imperfections and I should really steam it properly but for now I'm very happy with my finished product.

I'll post some more/better photos of me wearing my sweater soon, but I wanted to get this up for Yarn Along Wednesday.

Reading: I finished listening to the audiobook version of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and it was awesome. So, so good and such a satisfying ending! I'll try to get a review up pretty soon.

What have you been knitting and reading lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!

Love, 

Willow

*Author's Note: All images used in this post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with my express permission. See my About Page for details.*

Yarn Along - Wildflower, Week 17

Greetings! Obviously one of favorite things is reading, but I also quite love knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little link-up so once you're done here go visit and see what everyone else is up to.

Seaming is taking SO LONG. But I'm all but done with the first side, then it's on to the other side, weaving in ends, and steaming. Yeah, that's kind of a lot, I know. I absolutely positutely must be finished by Friday night, though, because on Saturday morning we're going to the park to take pretty pictures of us in our sweaters and then we're going to lunch in Pasadena as a group. So I have to be done.

I'm confident that it will happen because there's no babysitting this week for me until Saturday night, so I have all kinds of time in the evenings.

Reading:
I'm making headway in Jack Hitt's book, Off the Road. I've decided that I don't like him as a person. He's very pessimistic and unlikeable and sounds like he needs to have a long conversation with his mother about why his worldview is so unpleasant. Or a therapist. I'm liking the stories, though, and the feeling of walking and how - as much as I dislike his overall attitude - he remains bluntly honest throughout the telling of his story. I also love that he tells other people's stories, and it's a great look at the human condition through a slightly different lens.

That's it for me today - next week I'll post some of our pictures from our park photoshoot and the final, finished project!  

What have you been knitting and reading lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!

Love, 

Willow

*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. All other images used in this post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with my express permission. See my About Page for details.*

Yarn Along - Wildflower Cardigan, Week 16

Greetings! Obviously one of favorite things is reading, but I also quite love knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little link-up so once you're done here go visit and see what everyone else is up to.

So close, we are so, so close to being finished! I have successfully picked up and finished my neckband (thank you, Karen!!!) as well as my button band, and I am all but done with my buttonhole band. After that I only have to set in the sleeves and seam everything up. Only. *sigh*

 A thousand apologies for the absolutely appalling photos this week...

 

Haven't been reading much lately because I went to a Blogging Conference which I will post about later this week (probably tomorrow or Friday) and also, the Roommate is moving in this weekend! She's actually coming over this evening to drop off some stuff and get her keys so I've been busy busy getting the house tidied up. For some reason I'm always a mess after I take a weekend away. Whether it's a retreat or a mini vacation or house sitting, my housekeeping takes a major dive when I'm away from home for more than one night. 

The neck band is knit first and then the button band and buttonhole bands are picked up after.

Anyway, it's unlikely I'll actually meet the deadline of being done with this cardigan by tomorrow (our original goal), but hopefully by next week? Difficult to say but I'll do my darndest.

That's it for me today - next week hopefully I'll be almost done seaming and can show off some pics of that.  What have you been knitting and reading lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!

Love, 

Willow

*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. All other images used in this post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with my express permission. See my About Page for details.*

Wildflower Cardigan, Weeks 14-15

Greetings! Obviously one of favorite things is reading, but I also quite love knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little link-up so once you're done here go visit and see what everyone else is up to.

We are ALMOST DONE.  I picked up for the neckband last night (I'm a week behind because the phrase "pick up and knit" strikes terror into my little heart) with extra help from dear Karen. It was nice to have her sitting next to me while I did it (mostly) on my own because it's been a crummy week and if left to my own devices I probably would have thrown the whole project across the room and started crying. 

Source

It's been that kind of week, I tell ya.

Source

But I'm working on the neckband after finishing my sleeves and blocking my fronts properly. My hope is to be done with the neckband and at least partially through the button band by the time I go to bed tonight, because I want to catch up. We're meeting up at Lorene's house tomorrow night to start seaming and I'm well aware that seaming this project together is going to take a long time. I'm not super concerned about it being hard, just time consuming. However, I do want to set in the sleeves with Karen or even Jayne looking over my shoulder, just in case I do something incredibly stupid.

Sleeves Blocking

Reading:
I've been listening to the Audible version of Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore on and off lately. It's pretty interesting, and I like that the story is told from the perspective of a 20-something like myself (there really aren't that many books out there that target us - the genres go from YA to Adult Fiction without paying much attention to the 20-something). It's definitely not my favorite book and it's not the best thing I've ever read, but the voice actor doing the narrating does a good job. 

If you want to know what else I've got on my needles, head on over to my Ravelry page for a look-see.

 Bonus pic of Gatsby using the body of my cardigan as a pillow

That's it for me today - next week hopefully I'll be almost done seaming and can show off some pics of that.  What have you been knitting and reading lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!

Love, 

Willow

*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. All other images used in this post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with my express permission. See my About Page for details.*

Yarn Along - Wildflower, Weeks 5 - 13

Greetings! Obviously one of favorite things is reading, but I also quite love knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little link-up so once you're done here go visit and see what everyone else is up to.

My cardigan is starting to look like a cardigan!!!

WOW have I fallen off the blogging bandwagon in a big bad way! I've been so crazy-busy with some personal drama and taking on a new babysitting job and work is nuts and I haven't been sleeping and it's just been chaos over here in Willow World. Plus I've been trying to keep up with working on this cardigan that I've had very little time for anything else lately. Like blogging. Sorry.

BUT LOOK!!! I'm finished with my fronts! The chart was a bear, though. Those bobbles, man... I am not a fan. Thankfully by the time I was about halfway through the bobbles I figured out how to make them work a little better but they were still a major pain. The chart went a lot faster and was a lot easier the second time around. My recommendation: work the chart in scrap yarn before you do it on the real thing. That way you can rip it out or tink back and not ruin the yarn you'll actually be working with. I honesty wish I had done that but in the end they still turned out okay.

 Pocket - note the lifeline. Lifelines are IMPORTANT.

I have yet to sew my pocket linings onto the pocket fronts, though they have been joined to the body of the sweater (obviously, or I couldn't have continued on the fronts). I'm awaiting some data from darling Karen about how best to go about sewing it in since the obvious way didn't seem to work well for her. I'm looking forward to figuring it out and getting on with the rest of it, since we're beginning to fall a bit behind (the pocket chart, I tell ya, it's a doozy). For detailed notes on my thoughts on the pocket chart and the damnable bobbles, please click HERE to check my Ravelry project notes.

See the little stem? I talk about it in my project notes on Ravelry.

We're doing the sleeves two at a time (it was almost more trouble that it was initially worth because I had to start over 5 times before I got the hang of it). They're coming along nicely, although I'm not entirely sure I'll be finished with them by our meeting tomorrow night. Oops.

Not quite finished sleeves

Reading:
I confess, the reading has taken a dive. Between the new babysitting job, finishing up my sisters' Confirmation class, tax season, office chaos, cleaning my house, and knitting on the Wildflower Cardigan, I've been reading only in small bursts. These reading bits usually happen when I'm putting off doing the dishes. But I recently re-read The Ramsay Scallop which led me to order Off the Road, a modern day story about the Pilgrim's Way.

If you want to know what else I've got on my needles, head on over to my Ravelry page for a look-see.

That's it for me today.  What have you been knitting and reading lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!

Love, 

Willow

*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. The cover image of The Perfectly Imperfect Home is sourced to the Amazon page and is used for illustrative purposes only. All other images used in this post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with my express permission. See my About Page for details.*

Yarn Along - Wildflowers, Week 4

Greetings! Obviously one of favorite things is reading, but I also quite love knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little link-up so once you're done here go visit and see what everyone else is up to.

The back is finished!!! 222 rows of stockinette plus 11 rows of shortrow shaping and the back is finished!!! (Well, it's currently blocking, unlike what is shown in the pictures, but loooooook!)

The current, unblocked dimensions are about 20 inches across and about 18 inches from edge to the top of the shoulders. I'll share next week what the blocked dimensions come to.  The shoulder shaping and short rows were a little nerve wracking because the whole time my brain is singing, "Don't screw up, don't screw up. You can't go back if you screw this up." My inner voice is a real sweetheart, isn't she?

Reading:
I was in Salem, OR over the weekend (might post about it later this week but I didn't take a single picture so I'm not sure you just want a block of text...) and didn't bring any reading material because I knew that my aunt would have some lovely somethings for me to read - and I was working like mad to get this knitting done for our deadline of tomorrow evening. She leant me this lovely little book:

via Amazon

This book. It feels like a coffee table book, but I read it cover to cover. I love the watercolor illustrations, and I loved the author's voice - so conversational. While there are moments when she says really beautiful, profound things, in later chapters she becomes a bit pretentious - as if by not having this one French candle I might as well be a cave-dweller. I went into it knowing that this woman writes from a slightly upper-crust Manhattan perspective (worlds away from my blue collar roots), so it wasn't overly surprising. Overall, it was a very nice book, with clearly separated chapters, lots of practical advice, and it's easy to see how her methods can be applied to even my tiny, low-budget home.

When I get my own copy I'll post a more thorough review, I think. 

Oh! I also started reading the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, The Game of Thrones on the plane ride back from Portland. I'm only about 40 pages in and I'm not sure if I like it. It's violent (which I knew) but intriguing. It's reminding me how long it's been since I've read real, true fantasy for adults. Not sure if I'll keep reading or not.

On Friday we start casting on for the fronts and on Sunday we'll be working on the gorgeous wildflower pocket chart so next week hopefully I'll have lots more pretty to show you.

If you want to know what else I've got on my needles, head on over to my Ravelry page for a look-see.

That's it for me today.  What have you been knitting and reading lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!

Love, 

Willow

*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. The cover image of The Perfectly Imperfect Home is sourced to the Amazon page and is used for illustrative purposes only. All other images used in this post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with my express permission. See my About Page for details.*

Yarn Along - Wildflowers Cardigan, Week 3

Greetings! Obviously one of favorite things is reading, but I also quite love knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little link-up so once you're done here go visit and see what everyone else is up to.

 

Gosh, I can't believe it's only been 3 weeks. It feels like so much longer. It feels as though this cardigan is all I do anymore. (It really isn't; I've been doing a ton of cleaning and organizing at home but I'm still trying to get as much knitting done as possible to keep up with our self-imposed deadlines.)

Ravelry Project Page

Our goal is to be completely finished with the back by next Thursday. My personal goal is to be done a bit sooner than that. I've started the armhole shaping and making sure to count my stitches and mark my rows off very carefully because this is one of the parts that I really don't want to screw up.

I finished The Kings of Clonmel on Monday night and it was so good. I quickly moved on to the next one, Halt's Peril and finished it on Tuesday afternoon and jumped right into The Emperor of Nihon-Ja. It's so good. I have a few criticisms of the writing at this point in the series but I'll save those for my more thorough review of the books.  I'm so deeply invested in this series that I'm just gonna power through and there are only 2 left after this one! 

I'm headed to exotic Salem, OR on Friday at dark o'clock in the morning and until Monday night and I'm really excited. I'm bringing my knitting and I can't decide if I'll bring the last two Ranger's Apprentice books or if I'll bring my Kindle instead... It's such a hard decision! I'll probably bring my Kindle, though. In any case, I'm ready for 4 days of rainy, cold weather and completely thrilled to see my northern relatives and wander around town enjoying the cherry blossoms. My parents are keeping an eye on Gatsby and my house so I don't have to worry about that, thank goodness.

 Ravelry Project Page

If you want to know what else I've got on my needles, head on over to my Ravelry page for a look-see.

That's it for me today.  What have you been knitting and reading lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!

Love, 

Willow

*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. All other images used in this post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with my express permission. See my About Page for details.*

Yarn Along - Wildflowers Cardigan, Week 2

Greetings! Obviously one of favorite things is reading, but I also quite love knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little link-up so once you're done here go visit and see what everyone else is up to.

 

Week 2 of the Wildflowers Cardigan looks like this:

Maybe someday I'll get decent light in my living room so my pictures suck less...

That's 49 rows of stockinette, people! 10 inches! I've been averaging 10-20 rows a night when I put on my serious face and buckle down on it (which has been about 5 nights out of 7 in the last 2 weeks, so not bad). Tomorrow we meet for our 3rd official session at Karen's and I plan to either start decreasing for armholes then or by Saturday morning at the latest.

I had to do a bit of tinking on Saturday (so frustrating!) but by Sunday I was back on track and realized I should've been putting lifelines in every 20 rows but I wasn't. Don't worry - there are a bunch of lifelines in, now. It's a little time-consuming but I'd rather take the time to put them in rather than have to rip back farther than absolutely necessary if catastrophe strikes later.

Reading:

Since I've been really putting my nose to the knitting I haven't been reading a whole lot in the evenings, though I am still getting about 2 chapters in right before bed on The Kings of Clonmel, the next book in Ranger's Apprentice. This is the 2nd book in the series that's completely new to me so it's very exciting to be on this new adventure; my dreams are certainly more interesting. 

But for knitting, I need to listen to something, and I realized while babysitting last Friday night that I downloaded but failed to listen to Sarah Mackenzie's podcasts of the Read Aloud Revival. Guys, they are so, so good. These podcasts are so inspiring and encouraging.  Even without kids of my own, as an adult who wants a little extra something intellectually now that I'm out of school I'm finding so much inspiration to start reading challenging or different books without the intimidation factor looming large. It's hard to explain but if you like books at all you should absolutely go and at least listen to episode 1. 

If you want to know what else I've got on my needles, head on over to my Ravelry page for a look-see.

That's it for me today.  What have you been knitting and reading lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!

Love, 

Willow

*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. All other images used in this post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with my express permission. See my About Page for details.*

Yarn Along - Wildflowers Cardigan

Greetings! Obviously one of favorite things is reading, but I also quite love knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little link-up so once you're done here go visit and see what everyone else is up to.

Here we are, week 1 of my Wildflowers cardigan. Karen, Jaimie, Therese, Lorene, and I are finally on our way to making this lovely cardigan from Coastal Knits. We started choosing yarns and swatching for gauge back in December, shortly before Christmas. We gave our gauge swatches to dear Karen who kindly helped us figure out what size needles and what size of the pattern we would need to work to achieve our desired size cardigan. Then we met up last Friday night to cast on and get to work. 

I cheated a little by casting on some of my 222 stitches the night before (in my defense, I can't count worth anything so I knew I'd need to count and count and count again once I'd cast on), and I also started knitting one of my pocket linings. The others got their stitches cast on and we began working on the edge since the sweater is bottom-up. 

Someday I'll take better photos

The edging. Oh my goodness. It's one of those things where you have to count very carefully and put your wine down and focus and shush the people around you. It's not difficult but it required a great deal of focus. It also required me to completely rip out what I'd done and start over.

We met up on Saturday afternoon to finish the edging (which I'd caught up to that morning), put in a lifeline, and confirm our meeting schedule. We intend to be finished by April 30th. I've got a lot more knitting to do...

This is what 31 finished rows looks like. 123 rows to go...

The yarn is a new line my LYS is carrying: Berroco's Folio is a DK/sport weight yarn that's baby alpaca and rayon and while it's working up a little fuzzier than I'd really like, it feels good running through my fingers, isn't too splitty, and looks like it will have gorgeous drape when I'm done. I'll let you know in April if it was worth the money.

So last week I talked about Thrift Books and how much I love them, right? Well three more books in the Ranger's Apprentice series came yesterday so I spent more of my evening reading instead of knitting. I finished The Sorcerer of the North in a little less than 3 hours. This was partly because I'd read it before, and partly because it's not a very long book. Then I started reading The Siege of Macindaw but forced myself to quit after about 13 chapters because I had a headache and was very sleepy. I need to come up with a system that allows me to read a chapter for every 4 or 5 rows I knit, otherwise I won't finish my cardigan or my reading list.

The first three in the series - gorgeous hardcovers!

If you want to know what else I've got on my needles, head on over to my Ravelry page for a look-see.

That's it for me today.  What have you been knitting and reading lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!

Love, 

Willow

*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. All other images used in this post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with my express permission. See my About Page for details.*