Pattern: Bolero from Simply Soft by Debbie Bliss
Yarn: Cashmerino Aran, 7 skeins + another couple yards
Gauge: 18 sts/4in on US8/5mm

Well, it's done, and it's...aight. I think I obsessed over this pattern for too long before buying it, like it was The Knit of the Century, and of course it's just a little bolero. I like it, I do. Just not head over heels for it, like I thought I'd be.

The Cashmerino, such a soft, beautiful yarn, seems sort of a waste on something like this. I know it's a bolero so it's not supposed to cover you completely, but when I was wearing this I kept pulling the front together to get more cozy cashmerino goodness around me, and I thought, why didn't I just make something with more cashmerino coverage? Something like a cabled cardigan or turtleneck, something snug and squishy, something like the toddler seed stitch and cable jacket, but longer?

Blah blah blah. Blah. Blah. I'm just down on Debbie Bliss patterns. As you are aware by now I'm sure. It's No More Bliss After Thiss!

I think it looks better "buttoned" at the front. See? Too bad it will never be buttoned. I do have a single eye and hook fastener I might try. Or I just might try to be happy with it as is and leave it alone.

Only thing of note on this project: I used Aran instead of Chunky weight yarn. I did no adjusting of the pattern to account for this, except to add a couple extra rows in the armhole shaping. This sizing still came out fine. And I used JUST over 7 skeins. The original pattern called for 11 of chunky. Look at me, I'm so economically sized.

The color is nice though, no? I call it aubergine. That's fancy talk for "eggplant" by the way. In fact the paint color of our dining room wall is aubergine profonde. That's fancy talk for "super PROFOUND eggplant."

Thank you Duck for all those super profound angle shots.

Help...me...*twitch twitch*

This weekend I finished and blocked one half of what will become the world's ugliest pair of sleeves. Thanks to the wretched instructions for the Debbie Bliss bolero. Or, is it my fault? I don't know dude. I've never knit an adult sweater from DB, and this is the first time I looked at a sleeve cap and wanted to throw up. I even did the sloped bind off technique. Imagine if I hadn't. Wow. That is the ugliest sleeve cap I have ever seen.

Hopefully it will seam up alright.

Not much else on the knitting front. This week has been busy busy. Friday was my last day at the job so I've been busy with wrapping up and knowledge transferring and all that good stuff. It's been a good gig, one that originally was slated for 6 weeks but turned into 14 months.

It's amazing how much time goes by when you're not paying attention. Suddenly I was all, "I've been here over a year, and still don't have my own desk or know your name. Or yours. Or...yours." Such is the life of a contractor. I kept getting booted around for new, legitimate hires. I kept thinking, I'm only here temporarily, no use in introducing yourself, then meanwhile a year goes by and you still have no idea who anyone is or what they do.

Outside of my core group I did make one fabulous friend. And she has a fabulous name. Kitty! Kitty and Cat! Kitty Cat! We understand each other. We go drinking in bars and gossip/make fun/complain about people in the office and forget the time and spill wine all over ourselves and have our husbands come pick us up and say, "You smell like a homeless man." Oh wait that was just me. She's hilarious, and we've promised to keep the weekly, bi-weekly Cats' Night Out thing going.

But anyway, I decided to take another contracting gig that came along with another former co-worker, and I start some time this week, or possibly next. Whenever all the legal contract mumbo jumbo goes through.

So what am I going to do with the couple of free days that I have? DUH. I'm going to KNIT. NON-STOP.

And ride! We went biking again this weekend. I didn't have time to find a new seat (thanks for all your advice!) but I wore a pair of Duck's biking shorts, under cropped pants, to tie me over. A couple of times I sneaked a peak at my reflection as we rode by a storefront window, and gee! Who's that cat with the bubblicious JLo ass? Meerow! We stopped per usual in Lexington center, I ducked into Wild 'n Wooly (hooray! I can bike to the yarn store!), we had some ice cream, etc etc, then rode a little farther out before coming home. La la la!

Bolero Jacket from DB Simply Soft

So far I've only worked this in the car. Don't know what happened, but I'm not so ga-ga for it anymore. Figures. But I'll finish it, to get my money's worth if nothing else. I have only the sleeves to do, and then, the Endless Ribbing. Since I'm a renegade/lazy knitter, I did not alter the pattern to account for using Aran rather than Chunky. It's going to turn out smaller than the smallest size. It'll be fine, because I too am smaller than the smallest size.

Aimee from Rowan Vintage Style

I am officially President of the KSH Fan Club. Just had do to a couple of rows of this to get my KSH fix. For awhile there I was debating using some of the Liquer to make another Butterfly, and some of it for a shawl. This color is so delicious that I am overwhelmed with the urge to eat it. So, please, pass me the goat hair.

Our favorite gal, Kooch from Rowan 38

More Rowan! I just love this coat. By the time I finally decided that yes, I will pay for Rowan 38, they were out of stock everywhere. Everywhere being the one local yarn store that I can get to without driving. (The LYS in Boston which I deemed sometime back as MY LYS doesn't even stock Rowan, so it doesn't count as a reliable source.) A couple of weekends ago, on our way back home from Stowe, VT, we stopped by the ultra-bucolic little town of Woodstock, and as we strolled down the main street I said aloud, "A place like this ought to have a yarn shop, for sure." I had not even finished my sentence when we passed the last store on the street, et voila! Yarn! Fate! Ha Duck was thinking he was in the clear. Little does he know, I'm like the pig sniffing out his truffles. If there is yarn, I will find it.

The pattern for Kooch asks that you purchase 11 skeins of Yorkshire Tweed DK and 11 skeins of Tweed 4ply, and hold them together for a chunky gauge. That's 22 skeins of yarn. Ha HAA you cannot sucker me into paying $170 for two types of yarn, when I can instead pay $65 (shipping included! All the way from the UK!) for 10 skeins of Rowanspun Chunky in Fern on eBay and use the rest of the money I saved to buy shoes.

I had all these things I wanted to talk about, and now I got nothing. Can I be boringly brief instead? OK: Vermont was lovely, good riddance to Michael Brown, and Butterfly is on the road to a glorious debut.

But first, some not-so-glorious grafting of the hems. This was so gross, people. I didn't get why we had to knit 4 rows of St. st. in waste yarn at either ends for the hem, but figured it would all make sense come grafting time. Well it didn't. All those rows of waste yarn was a pain in the ass to maneuver around, didn't help me in the grafting process, so I ended up removing them and threading one string of contrasting yarn through the loops. That made it much easier, and in the end the pattern motif aligned. F+ for technique, but A- for outcome.

Lo! That's project number 2 that I've been knitting up during weekend after weekend of mini roadtrips this past month. Why yes, it's that blasted Bolero from Debbie Bliss Simply Soft that I kept mooning about forever. I must have leafed through it in five different yarn stores before I finally sucked it up and bought it. It's still a bloody rip-off! Anyway, I'm doing this in Cashmerino Aran, rather than Chunky, and have the back and one front panel finished. The front panel ridiculously itty bitty, but half of its width is comprised of 2x2 ribbing that goes all around the circumference of the entire piece. That'll be fun when I get to it.

Pattern: Cable and Seed Stitch Jacket from The Baby Knits Book by Debbie Bliss
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (how I love this yarn), 6 skeins for size 12-18 months
Gauge: 18 sts/10cm on US8

This jacket took a lot longer than I had anticipated, mostly due to finishing details like the collar, sewing in the pockets, finding the perfect buttons, sewing the buttons on. The end result though is a super adorable, super cozy, and super plush little jacket that I hope his mommy will like. Damnit, let me be frank here: I better see the kid wear this jacket every Thanksgiving and Christmas for the next 2 years.

I know pockets might go unappreciated by a toddler, but I think the jacket wouldn't be quite right without them. They are so cute. I'm hoping Baby will fill his little pockets with pebbles, or sticks, or whatever interesting knick-knacks he finds. Frogs included.

This was the first time I made pockets, and a collar, and the first time I knit sleeves from the top down. Since there's no armhole shaping nor sleeve cap shaping, I figured it would be easy to just pick up stitches for the sleeves at the arms, and work down. I just reversed the directions for the sleeves, and it saved me tons of time in the seaming that I didn't have to do.

Shut up.

Well isn't this sad. I couldn't resist trying it on myself. Imagine the delight/horror to find that this jacket for a 12 month-old kind of fits across the back and front of a scrawny 29 year-old (baby things are ROOMY, aight??), and doesn't look all that strange cropped. Hello bolero with uh...one-third sleeves! If Baby doesn't like this jacket, shit give it back to me and I'll wear it.

Cute and cozy

One more pocket to sew in, buttons to attach and I'm done. When I started this I thought I'd be done in plenty of time, but it looks like I'll be done only just in time for the baby shower in a week. Phew.

Debbie Bliss Cabled Seed Stitch Jacket, using Cashmerino Aran which is so YUM.

This cute little number is for the nephew who will be arriving in October. My SIL's baby shower is at the end of the month, so I'm hurrying to finish. I should have plenty of time, but I have not and will not have an entire weekend to myself for a looong time, and the hours at home after work have been short. So far I have the back and one front finished...eeee.

I really love DB Cashmerino. I need to make something for myself in it. But, the yarn is really the only thing about DB that I love, really. Her pattern books drive me mad. No schematics, hard to read row-by-row instructions that leave you crosseyed, and TONS OF ERRORS. I understand the one or two typos, but please. Take this jacket for example. Entire sections were completely left out. The book I have is like a second edition with the errors corrected, but only some. Can't get it right even the second time? If you breeze through her website's pattern revision section, you can tell this is a common occurance. The revisions are in 5 paragraph essay form, dude. For a "high-end" knitting retailer like DB, I find this a huge turnoff. Am I getting what I pay for? This is why I keep hemming and hawing about buying Simply Soft.

By the way, I got the Baby Knits book from the library. Now I'll get off my soapbox.