Life At Villa Boswell

This sweater was completed before Christmas, in a deep jewel tone that I think is wonderful for the winter time.  It also goes really well with some patterned corduroy pants I have.

The Pattern

The pattern, called "Sahara" is from Stitch Diva Studios.  I love all of their designs, which are quite stylish and form-fitting.  It’s just amazing the patterns they have for crochet too: who knew you could make something you’d actually want to wear with crochet?  Anyhow, what’s also nice about the Sahara pattern is that you can knit it to fit your body, adding or subtracting the increase/decrease element to suit your taste or to modify the style of the sweater.  You can also adjust the depth of the "v" neck, to make it more or less plunging.

Here are the details:

• Pattern: Sahara from Stitch Diva, by Wendy Bernard
• Tilli Thomas Pure and Simple for the body, Disco Lights for the neck and bands (Don’t click if you hate drooling)
• Totally adjustable: sleeves, neckline, hem length

That’s about perfect! Especially since the pattern (check out the link to the pattern to see), is made-up for a total barbie doll.  (I mean, really, how many women who knit have protruding hip bones, for Pete’s sake?)  And sure, if you have a size A- bra cup, then feel free to plunge that baby right down to your belly button, because nothing’s gonna fall out.  All the rest of us have to be a bit more circumspect, thank you.

Continue reading Stitch Diva Sahara

The shop owner also explained to me that the "Poof" yarn lacked a lot of structure to it, so you had to use the Poof yarn along with another yarn that had a more firm structure that would act to hold the hat in place. For this, I used Debbie Bliss Cotton yarn and just held both strands together when doing the knitting.  Read on for more!

Continue reading Christmas Gift Hats

I love the Interweave Winter ‘06 edition.  To me, it’s full of great projects, like the Venezia Pullover, with both Fairisle techniques and steeking.  I haven’t gotten around to that pattern yet, but I know I will.  However, back in January of 2007, I wanted a "welcome back to knitting" project after years away.  Initially, I had started with a simple stockinette stitch coat, but after knitting about 3/4 of the back, i just started to feel extremely bored.  I wanted something more engaging.

Welcome to the Pewter Coat! 

I really thought this wouldn’t be as hard as the pattern indicated, since I had done lots of cables before and didn’t find them difficult.  However, I had never worked off a chart before, so I was a little intimidated.  I decided to go with a brown heather wool (it’s been so long now that I forgot which yarn I used!) instead of the grey cashmere blend shown on the model.  Here’s the finished result! (Finished this sweater in August, 2007).

Continue reading Pewter Coat, Interweave 2006 Winter Issue

Every sweater knitting experience has an abundance of lessons, so why not learn from them?  I finished my Winter Joy Jacket and was not happy with the button band, since I hadn’t paid attention to the exact number of stitches I should have picked up.  By the time I got to the band, I was dying to wear the sweater and impatient to be done with it.  But when I complained about it to my friend Josie, she said to me, "When you spend that much, you gotta love it."  She was totally right.

So, I ripped out the button band, and therein learned the importance of good finish work on the inside, because the process was a total pain due to my inconsistent threading. But, I realized that a new button band would not make me "love it" as Josie said.  I wanted a bit more control over the color and a more fitted look to the sides.

So I ripped out the whole dang thing, excepting the sleeves, and started again with the intention of doing better seaming, a better button band, better attention to color, and finally a more shaped fit, since my first pass according to the pattern produced a pretty bulky sweater for me.

You can see the results here.

  Continue reading Lessons Learned: Swatching & The Winter Joy Jacket

I first saw this wonderful sweater on Natalie Wilson’s Iknitiative website when I was browsing through it last spring. My niece Diane, who was knitting some of Natalie’s patterns, turned me onto her site.  Later in the summer when I visited my mom for her 85th birthday in Houghton Lake Michigan, my niece and I escaped for a bit of yarn-bonding and retail therapy at Arnies.  Have you ever been to Arnie’s?  Ok, I’m digressing a bit, but it IS my blog…

I’m from the SF Bay Area in California.  I am used to stores for EVERYTHING.  I have been to Mall of America, and frankly, it ain’t nothin’ compared to the Santana Row/Valley Fair complex in San Jose.  And we have cool yarn shops all over the place here.  And I haven’t even mentioned San Francisco!  But Arnies?  For an Arnies, you have to go to Houghton Lake, in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan. When I lived in Houghton Lake as a kid, Arnies was one small corner shop in a row of various stores, and now it IS the entire block of shops– a series of contiguous rooms that you can wander through in a craft-dazed wonder.  As my husband pointed out, it’s the perfect shop for a place like Houghton Lake, because there isn’t much else to do there, so you can take up painting, framing, knitting, woodwork, embroidery, knitting… did I mention knitting?

So I spotted the Noro Iro yarn that Natalie used for her sweater, Noro Iro #43.  It felt a bit "bright" for me, although as I write this and look at the pattern picture, I kind of wonder if I didn’t chicken out.  It’s so lively.  In any case, I went with the more muted tones of #57.  So, without any further ado, here’s the finished sweater!

  Continue reading Winter Joy Jacket by Natalie Wilson