Tag: Royally Striped

FO: My Technicolor Dreamcoat

I’m renaming my Royally Striped cardigan to my Technicolor Dreamcoat. I feel like it’s a fitting name, don’t you?
Royally striped
So this is a magical Stephen West sweater pattern. How he came up with this construction is beyond me. The finished object after blocking is just a little big (I made the large) but I love it because it’s like a cocoon and I’m just wrapped up in squishy colorful goodness. It was what I had hoped my Boothbay cardigan would be but unfortunately that one sat up on my butt in a horrid way. Fortunately for my BFF Jess it fits her perfectly so I’m not mad about giving it away. And now I have a proper replacement for it!
Royally striped
For this project I used four colors of Miss Babs Yowza I had in my stash and on the back panel I finally got to use my HiKoo Abracadabra yarn that changes color from white to purple. I bought this yarn maybe 2 or 3 years ago but couldn’t figure out what to make with it and as I was pulling this together I had the brilliant idea that it would be fun to add to the back panel.
Royally striped
Here’s the back on and then here’s a better look at the color change. Also remember this is the back panel I put on the wrong side and was easily able to fix it. You can’t even tell!
Royally striped
This was as much color change as I was able to get since my house is always in the shade. But you can see it is a little lavender. It gets darker but I didn’t have the time to wait it out or patience.
Royally Striped
This was an extremely satisfying knit. Lots of garter stitch and the short rows but without wraps! And now I’m plotting making an orange, purple and pink version for my cousin in the size small with my stash. I could even see myself making it in a more neutral color palette in the medium to make it more of a wearable to work piece, but who am I kidding? I’m going to wear this bold version to work too. I love it. Now I wish it was cold again because this would be a great transitional weather piece. Now the pattern does say it can be worn on either side but I’m just a bit too short to wear it with the navy portion as the collar but that’s fine with me. I like it this way the most. since it highlights the fun stripes with the short rows.
Royally striped
And if you’re ever wondering what it’s like for me to photograph these things and why I’m always smiling it’s because I’m super distracted. Yesterday it was because of Jellybean and…
Royally striped
My insanely silly husband. But hey, they make life that much sweeter. Cher decided to just sit this one out and watch us from the sidelines. So yeah, this is a happy and colorful sweater that I have already wrapped myself up in while we binge watch TV. I have a feeling it will get a lot of use. Have any of you tried this pattern or another West Knits wild pattern?

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by Categories: blue, Color, FO: Finished Object, green, HiKoo, Jellybean, Knitting, Miss Babs, multi, My Dogs, pink, Sweaters, YarnTags: , , , , , , , 21 Comments

Stitching Status: Progress & Projects

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I’ve been knitting, but I haven’t taken any finished photos of me wearing my projects. Work is hectic and it’s been rainy here so it has been keeping me from showing you the color changing yarn on my finished Royally Striped cardigan! It’s kind of awesome so I hope I can get a time lapse video showing the color change. Fingers crossed it brightens up around here soon so I can get some UV rays on my yarn!
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One of the things I’ve loved when I made the Royally Striped cardigan is that I used an entire skein of Miss Babs Yowza – this was all that was left! It’s a mega skein of 560 yards of yummy light worsted weight yarn and is slowly becoming a favorite. I was worried I might have to crack into the other skein but I didn’t which means it can be used in another fun project. I really do play a lot of yarn chicken but since I didn’t use the same colors like in the pattern I wasn’t 100% sure what yardage amounts I would need. Needless to say, it all turned out just fine and I totally want to make this cardigan again. Maybe the next one will be more neutral? Or maybe it will be a gift for someone else? Who knows.
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In other news, I’m currently working on that baby blanket to go with the tiny green hat I made the other night. I decided on chevrons but I’m doing solid blocks of green with navy and light grey stripes of chevrons in between 3 blocks of green. I think it will have a great contrast and make the green really pop. I’m sure my girlfriend will love it and I’m sure her baby will be snuggled with it for years to come.
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Whenever I knit the dogs are glued to my hips on the couch, they’re good company. I’ve only had two occasions where Jellybean was hyped up and ran away with my ball of yarn thinking it was a toy but I quickly got it back. But I’m always snapping photos of them and usually sharing them on my Instagram stories but this pic of Jelly…every time I look at this photo all I can think of is Dumbo and the line, ‘you can fly, you can fly, you can fly!’ LOL She’s all ears and cuteness. Hopefully over the weekend I’ll have lots of sunshine and time to properly photograph my latest finished object and with the way this baby blanket is working up I’ll be finished with that soon too!

by Categories: Baby Blanket, blue, Color, green, Jellybean, Knit Picks, Knitting, Miss Babs, My Dogs, pink, Sweaters, YarnTags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Stitching Status: Mending Mistakes

Before we left for our vacation to Savannah I started on my Royally Striped Cardigan. I should’ve taken the dress for my goddaughter that has a billion miles of stockinette stitch but I just didn’t want to do it. So I started on Royally Striped instead. I always think, oh this will take me a while to make and then something about the pattern will excite me and I plow right through it.
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Before we started our road trip I started about this much of the first section to create the cardigan. What I love about this project is that you can use up a lot of single skeins of dk weight yarn you might have, the color combinations are endless and it’s nice and mindless garter stitch with a few basic short rows (without the wrapping – hooray!). Added bonus I finally figured out a project where I could use my Hikoo Abracadabra color changing yarn I bought ages ago. This is a great car project in the early stages and a great end of the day winding down kind of project to work on too.
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This is a little bit more progress I was able to make in the evenings in our hotel. I loved our hotel because they had these amazing green chairs with huge ottomans in our room so I had a perfectly cozy knitting spot.
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And the end of every row you slip one stitch with the yarn in from (SL1 WYF) and it makes it super easy to ensure you’re picking up the correct amount of stitches around the edge. As much as I love picking up stitches I’m horrible at getting the right number. This time I got my numbers right (isn’t the inside just beautiful?) but unfortunately I picked up my stitches on the WRONG SIDE. Yeah, you read that right. But I didn’t panic! And you might have seen this on my Instagram Stories.
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I realized as I was at the end of this massive block on the back and was going to need to do my side pieces next that I did indeed pick up from the wrong side. I was a little confused and had hoped the pattern would’ve had a better picture for my brain to grasp where to pick up but it didn’t so I did what I thought was right and it was so wrong. So instead, my solution was to pick up stitches on the correct side and then use the side I hadn’t finished yet to do a three needled bind-off to attach it. My color block is upside from where I wanted it but I was able to flip it without a problem. I was also able to easily unravel the other side where I picked up stitches and put the correct amount of stitches back on my needle. I was so proud of myself. Now I’m sure there are other ways I could’ve worked this out but I don’t care! LOL I worked this one out on my own with lots of success.

All that’s left is the border on both sides, two different colors and the short sleeves. But I love that it has armholes and a shape so I can actually put it on. I’m super excited to see this as a final project and cannot wait to see the yarn truly change color in the sun. The only problem? I’ll have to wait until fall to really wear it but whatever, it gets cold in my house in the summer with the AC on, right?

by Categories: blue, Color, HiKoo, Knitting, Miss Babs, multi, pink, Stitching Status, Sweaters, YarnTags: , , , , , 8 Comments