The Little Lebowski: Stalled

This in-the-round Fair Isle sweater is slated to become a zip-front cardigan for my son, and of course, because it is an original pattern and a stash-busting project, I have run out of yarn. As evidenced by the picture below, I'm roughly 95% done.



I have a handful of decrease rounds left and then the collar. I'm thinking about doing the steek and adding the zipper, then picking up stitches for the collar at the end. Originally I was thinking of a short, simple crew neck, but now that I have to buy another skein of yarn, I might as well try a shawl collar a la the original adult version. Now I just have to convince some of the other ladies from my knitting group to help me reach the $50 free shipping magic total at Knit Picks. . .

Fairy Tale Cardigan

Done and done, just in time for the first 90-degree day of the year. This pattern is the Gooseberry Cardigan from Interweave Knits Weekend 2009 issue. I made the 48" size and used 13 skeins of Knit Picks Merino Style, which is DK weight, in Fairy Tale.



It took an eternity to block, but it was well worth the effort to get the collar to lie flat. I really like the oversized collar and the long ribbing at the bottom, but think I may have been better off knitting a smaller size for the sleeves, as they seem to bulge under the arms.

Mermaid Sorbet: A Use for Otherwise Unusable Yarn

About a month ago I dyed this yarn with Easter egg dye. The yarn is Knit Picks Bare superwash in fingering (sock) weight, and I used four of the color tablets - red/pink, blue, yellow, and purple - to get a sense of what the colors would look like. The yarn looks gorgeous all wound up like this, but because I didn't make a longer skein for longer color repeats, it will not stripe if I knit it into socks and would probably be a horrible, variegated mess.

My solution: dropped stitches. I'm using the Seafoam pattern from Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book and size 5 circulars (40 inches). I am calling this scarf Mermaid Sorbet because of the colors and the pattern, but I inadvertantly cast on 666 stitches (I needed a multiple of 10 + 6), so I toyed with the idea of calling this project Devilfish.


I've completed two pattern repeats, each repeat being 8 rows, and I think I'll have enough yardage to do two more repeats. As bright and crazy as this yarn is, I really like the longer pieces of color I see because of the multiple yarn overs. In my humble opinion, a dropped-stitch pattern or one with multiple yarn overs seems an ideal way to show off a colorful yarn that doesn't seem suited to many other projects.

The Little Lebowski: Body

After knitting a stockinette version of The Dude's Sweater from The Big Lebowski last year, I was inspired to knit a child-size version for my son with the leftover yarn (Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky in Bare, Caribou, and Coal). I'm also doing this sweater the "right" way, which means the entire garment is worked in 1x1 ribbing.

I toyed with the idea of using a tubular cast on but fear I might be short on yarn. I am, however, using TECHknitting's advice to eliminate the "icky dots" that result from purling in more than one color. Solution: Knit all stitches in the first round or row of a color change.

And speaking of colors, the bulky yarn combined with a pint-sized sweater led me to do away with the more intricate colorwork and use only the repeating "Z" chart (shown below) at the middle of the sweater.



My intent right now is to knit sleeves, then join them to the body and knit around with raglan decreases. Also, I will be doing my first ever steek to turn this into a zip-up cardigan.