Year in Review: 2012

There are not a lot of finished projects to go over this year, as I spent a lot of time with video games. However, the projects that did get done were successful, and that's my goal these days!

The first project was made very quickly, as I needed a light summer wrap to wear to wedding.

This quick crochet cardigan is by Doris Chan called Sambuca Jacket found in her book Amazing Crochet Lace. This is the third time I've made this jacket, and this was the most successful result. I like this little cotton 3/4 sleeved jacket and it  got a lot use over the summer. I am not happy with the sewing job on the clasp, and I'll fix that at some point. (btw: that is not the dress I wore to the wedding, that's a dress I made years ago that no longer fits, but I love it too much to get rid of it).

This is definitely one of my favorite crochet jacket patterns and I know I'll make more (it's fast, and now that I know what I'm doing, easy). Hmmm... need to make a wool version at a tighter gauge!


The next project wasn't quite as quick or easy.

The pattern is St. Patrick by Lisa Lloyd (from her super fab book: A Fine Fleece). I will say this is one the highest concentration cabled projects I've done. The cables work at different ratios... and there's a lot of them. I did switch out the cables on the sleeve and I had a huge rookie mistake with the yarn. The yarn is from Beaverslide Dry Goods, a small farm. The yarn arrived with only one skein tagged, and there's no dye lot. Without thinking, I just used one skein at a time, when I should have alternated, as there were significant variance between skeins. So I dyed it. In black food coloring.

I'm not 100% sure it was worth the work, and he's not worn this sweater much (Matt likes very non-colored sweaters and this definitely has color). It's also thick and very warm (wool/mohair blend... and of course with all the trips into the hot dye bath, if fulled a bit). Maybe as the winter weather gets super cold, he'll wear it more, but I think the biggest problem is that I finished Portland right after I finished St. Patrick.

Yet an other pattern by Lisa Lloyd from her book A Fine Fleece (the goal is to knit every project!). This one was actually a fairly quick knit, the yarn is gorgeous (Jo Sharp's Silkroad Aran) and he's worn this one a lot already this fall. Soft, lightweight and warm!

Last but far from least is Matt's Christmas gift (which he's already wearing in heavy rotation)

This pattern is supposed to by Elizabeth Zimmermann's Seamless Yoke Pullover with Shirt Yoke, but I could not "get" the vague math based directions. There was a lot of adjustment to get the fit I wanted and I made some design changes. Totally worth the challenge, as this turned out great. The fit is good, I love the textured body and the zipper installation is one of the best I've done. Initially I wanted to do this as a field jacket with globs of pockets, but the realization that this soft yarn (Queensland Kathmandu DK) wasn't strong enough to handle the wear and tear of patch pockets, so I only left the one I put on the sleeve:

I will make this style again in a sturdy yarn so that we can do the field jacket style.

So overall a fab year for finished projects. I will say that while every project had some challenges, I took the time to fix them and ended up with very useable sweaters! Let's hope that I can get a few more projects finished in 2013 (with some color! I think we'll focus on more color for 2013... which means more finished projects for me!!!)