Monday, March 30, 2009

Deadlines

I recently spent two solid weeks working on a knitting deadline (which partially explains my blog inactivity). Normally I work best under a deadline, but this experience was almost frantic. Even worse, it was of my own doing. I really hate it when I have no one to blame but myself.

Toward the beginning of February, I received an invitation to a baby shower that was scheduled for the third week of March. "No problem," thought I. It was plenty of time to knit some sweet baby gear. I spent the first week deciding whether to make a blanket or a sweater. Then I spent far too much time obsessing about color and pattern. After much dawdling, I realized that I only had two weeks until the shower, and I absolutely had to make a decision. (Oh, and I had to entertain houseguests the week before the shower.) Ah, procrastination—my old nemesis.

And what did I decide to knit? A toddler-sized fingering weight cardigan with a hood. Egad.

But I did it. I didn't get the buttons sewn on until the morning of the shower, but that is neither here nor there at this point, right?

ff cfm done angle
Pattern: "A Cardigan for Merry," by annypurls
Yarn: Fearless Fibers lightweight superwash merino sock yarn, "Inner Sanctum"
Needles: 2.50 mm.

ff cfm detail
Very happy with the cable grafting

I have wanted to knit this cardigan ever since I first saw the pattern a couple of years ago. Being mostly stockinette, it really is a fairly simple cardi. The reversible cable is quite intuitive to knit, too. Because I had delayed the decision about what to knit, though, I definitely had to knit it with yarn from my stash. My two favorite colors for baby sweaters are green and orange, and since the last two baby sweaters I knit were green, I wanted to go for orange. Luckily I had two skeins that fit the bill. The pattern calls for sport weight yarn, but I did a bit of number crunching for my fingering weight, and all turned out well.

Before I started on the baby cardi, I managed to finish up some yarn that's related to another deadline.

cmf swm tm swirls
Fiber: Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino, "Touch Me"
3 ply
806 yards
212 grams

cmf swm tm strands
My two pink-loving nieces both have birthdays at the end of April. Can I bring myself to knit two pairs of bright pink socks in that time? Stay tuned to watch the disaster progress.

10 Comments:

At 3/30/09, 6:29 PM, Blogger Jodi said...

Super cute! I love the color and all the cable details. Holy cow, fingering weight?!?! That's very intense. Congrats on finishing up a beautiful project in record time.

 
At 3/30/09, 7:40 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

You've had a busy month. It's all beautiful. That cardigan would be really cute in the pink yarn.

 
At 3/30/09, 7:52 PM, Anonymous Stephanie said...

That is pretty much the sweater I want to make my toddler-to be; a burnt orange hoodie cardigan! I love it!

 
At 3/30/09, 11:46 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Love it. Even though it was a race to the finish!

 
At 3/31/09, 6:52 AM, Blogger Dave said...

Love the sweater, and what a great colour that is!

Good luck on the socks. :-)

 
At 3/31/09, 1:51 PM, Blogger bockstark.knits said...

both of them, super gorgeous!!!

 
At 4/1/09, 6:46 PM, Blogger Ann said...

The baby cardigan is gorgeous & the color is lovely. That's fast knitting considering that you are using 2.5mm!

 
At 4/1/09, 11:07 PM, Anonymous Oiyi said...

It is such a perfect color and sweater!

 
At 4/3/09, 3:43 PM, Blogger Opal said...

deadlines! ack! what a gorgeous sweater! i'm loving that yarn too. :)

 
At 4/4/09, 9:38 AM, Blogger peaknits said...

What a sweet little sweater - wow! And those socks will be gorgeous with you fabulous handspun! Nice work!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home