Well, This coming January I will be getting married for some strange reason I didn’t want to buy a dress…I wanted to make my own…so I spent most of last night looking for inspration. Do to the fact that my fiance will be coming home from deployment and I will be going to school and finding/decorating our first home, I must use my time well.  For this dress I’m envisioning white satin and crystals encrusted all over the bodice…and chiffon for the skirt…I need to read up on how to add a train to a dress pattern..I will most certainly be making a muslin for this dress being that I’ve never worked with these types of fabrics…Found several books I thought would be a great resource for this project. I also plan on creating a birdcage veil.

As I informed everyone in the previous post I wanted desperately to convert this Berroco v-neck pull over into a v-neck cardigan. I found a coupple of links that I thought would be helpful to anyone else desiring to attempt this. The first and my favorite was found in an article published in the Morning Star in 1991 and the Sweaterscapes webpage. I cant wait to start on the process…My Alpaca sweater is coming along very slowly, I’ve almost completed the 3 1/4” ribbing for the neck…cant wait to get started beading!

Ok well I must say there comes a point where you learn something new I’m life! Today I visited Knit N Stitch, I initally went there to find US4 16″ circulars and wasn’t sure why they were more expensive than the other lenghths for that needle. I then asked Sue to assist me in finding a pattern I could make into a v-neck cardigan and she showed me Berroco # 289 which had a sweater that was what I wanted in my cardigan design the ladies there even helped me understand the design process and everything!
But the best part of the day was the guage swatch for my beaded sweater. I initally did my guage in the required needles for the pattern and ended up with 17sts=4″, then went down to a US4 (knitpicks Zephyer options) and got 18sts=4″, I want to cry because my guage for the pattern needed to be 22sts=4″ and I feared I would have to go down to a US2!!! Sue commented that maybe those needles weren’t the best for that particular yarn and handed me some Plymouth Bamboo! What the !!! I gave all my bamboo needles away and now the type of needle could be affecting my guage? And sure enough she was right using the US4 Plymouth needles I got the right guage. I didn’t realize that was the reason they make needles of different types I thought it had to do with the knitters own preference, but I was wrong! Here’s the puddin’ to prove it:

1. Guage with US6 Knitpicks Needles

2. Guage with US4 Knitpicks needles

3. Guage with US4 Plymouth Needles

I went with my friend Sue to a yarn heaven called Valonas yesterday, I searched for yarn to make the beaded pull over from the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of knit1 magazine. I found several that I liked, but they didn’t have enough in stock! I didn’t want to spend a ton of money to make the sweater so I was just going to give up until… Sue surprised me with THIS!

It’s like touching a cloud for $28 you get 645 yards. My sweater will have shorter sleeves, but that’s fine because my arms are not as long as the models anyway! I purchased three tubes of seed beads in silver, purple, and gray.

Today I purchaed two magazines knitscene fall 2009 because I had all this yarn in odd amounts and colors and they had a herringbone slip stitch sweater. I also got the British magazine The Knitter it has another slip stich pattern and a tutorial on fair isle the best step by step I’ve seen!

So I made progress on the AM Ruffles and Roses scarf after starting approximately 5 times because people seem to like to disturb me when I’m knitting lace. I’ve now began work on the ribbing for one half of the scarf. So far I don’t like that the guage was taken using the ribbon yarn, my scarf is turning out much wider. I’ve realized now that is no longer an issue because I will seem up the sides of the scarf cause I hate the wrong side. Unless you are a chart reader keep in mind that when you get to the odd rows the meaning of the stitch symbols is reversed. Here’s my progress so far:

Well I’ve finally got the hang of the ruffled roses scarf. I’m making it using Tango ribbon yarn in a pumpkin orange and brown color way, along with Lambs pride in brown. The hardest part of this is understanding how to work with the ribbon yarn, maybe I’m just a bit slow with directions. Here’s my progress thus far:

I’m happy to report I have finished the Boyfriend Hat I knitted for my fiancé, I plan on putting a care package together for him with all kinds of goodies.

Finally found some rhinestone findings to add sass to my sweater I funished a couple weeks ago. I found these rhinestone hair things 2 for $6 the last ones I saw were 2 for $32 and there’s no way I was paying that much to decorate my sweater.

I absolutly can’t wait to finally be done with this hat. It’s coming along very well now all that’s left is the decreases yeah, maybe that’s something I can finish this week to put in a care package for my honey

I sat in the yarn shop today and worked on my guage swatch for the Boyfriend Hat and I am happy to report I nailed the stitch guage head on, I’m a few rows short for that guage but oh well I will just knit it a bit longer. I hope it keeps my fiancé warm in the afganistan winter.