Monthly Archives: April 2011

FO: Diva!

It’s been a long, long time coming, but I finally finished my Diva sweater a few months ago! Took me ages to get some decent photos…

Hanne Falkenberg's Diva

Pattern: Diva by Hanne Falkenberg, in Dark Olive and Cyclamen – I think I bought the kit from CucumberpatchUK on ebay.
Needles: 3mm
Yarn: kit yarn; it was a pretty delicate two ply lightweight wool, slightly scratchy, something like Jamieson’s.

Thoughts:
This sweater took ages, but it was kind of nice to knit a sweater from someone else’s pattern for once. The shaping is unique and very interesting to knit! It took me ages to figure out what the heck was actually going on with some of the shaping. The collar was a LOT of knitting but it’s shaped with short rows in a really interesting way.

Hanne Falkenberg's Diva

Cons: It’s a little big. I knit the smallest size, which was supposed to 37″ – it’s a pretty good jacket size, but a little looser than I usually like my sweaters.

The sleeves are WAY long, about 4″ too long, and the collar kind of hits at a funny place. It’s difficult to find a good place to pin it closed that isn’t directly on my boob (which I have much more of than the pattern model), but it doesn’t really work worn open. From a design standpoint, the armholes are a little weird fitting – they’re not quite set in and not quite raglan.

oops!

I shouldn’t have seamed with the main yarn – it’s just a little too delicate for the task. I found this hole in the sleeve seam after washing. I should really fix that up.

Overall? Fun to knit, interesting construction. It doesn’t fit perfectly but I’m still happy I made it.

Hanne Falkenberg's Diva

hey! it’s an FO!

I haven’t done much this weekend, though I did book a few hotels for Leeds, Cardiff, and Swansea. Still need to do trains, and Ireland! Only 7 sleeps left…yikes.

This weekend I made scallion pancakes, and had them in a Chinese feast along with egg drop soup and some broccoli. Nom. It’s a good thing I only made half a batch, because I would’ve just eaten them all.

scallion pancake

I worked on a shawl in Spud & Chloe Fine. I love it, and I think I’ll be making another version on my trip as one of my take-along projects. I need to block this one so I can see what the finished dimensions are – this is the larger version, and I’ll be doing a smaller scarfy one next.

oranges

And for the first time in what feels like forever, I finished something! This is the simple lacy cowl that I started on my trip to NYC. It was great carry around knitting, just one ball of yarn and working in the round.

lacy cowl

I used one skein of Socks that Rock Silkie in “Walking on the Wild Tide” (rockin’ sock club colourway). The lace pattern is just one round knit, one round yo, ssk, with the beginning of the round shifting one st to the left every lace round.

lacy cowl

I have some more FOs to show you this week too – I’ve been pretty bad at taking photos of my finished sweaters, so I finally just up and did them all in one fell swoop!

leeds?

I’m thinking of going to Leeds instead of Newcastle – any recommendations for places to stay? Areas to avoid?

This whole trip planning thing is overwhleming! And the planner in me thinks I’m leaving things way late. Luckily train tickets still look pretty reasonable since I won’t actually be going anywhere until the 2nd week of May.

And for a little fibery content, a project I’ve been working on (not very hard) for ages is finally starting to come together. It’s a blanket, though this isn’t the final configuration at all – just needed to see how many more hexes I need!

hexes