Since I spent most of
Since I spent most of the evening out on my weekly "date" with my husband, I thought I would spend a little time introducing my knitting history and posting pictures of some of my "in progress" projects.
I started knitting about 7 or 8 years ago when I was in graduate school. A good friend of mine, Judy, who was in the same lab with me showed me how to get started. She inspired me because she was always knitting these lovely and colorful FairIsle sweaters. I was particularly amazed by this incredible Kaffe Fassett sweater that she did.
She patiently taught me the basics -- she's where I picked up my Continental tendencies -- and proceeded to get me hooked on Alice Starmore patterns. (She also gave me some books that I am forever in her debt for, because you just can't get them anymore). I loved the colors of FairIsle, but came to the conclusion that I liked texture more than I liked different colors. Suddenly I wanted to cable everything! My first major sweater accomplishment (probably only my 3rd project) was "Grapevine" from Stillwater. It turned out a little bigger than I expected, but it is the perfect rainy day sweater.
From there, I jumped into another Starmore sweater pattern, this one from In the Hebrides called Malin. This is the back of the sweater (which I started with and am still working on).
I love this sweater, but I can only work about one section of the main pattern before going completely crazy and putting it down again for months. Of course, that didn't stop me from trying to do another big cabled sweater for my husband. This one is called "St. Kilda" and is from the same pattern book. Once again, I have started on the back, and this is what it looks like so far:
It was these two sweaters that sent me in search of simpler projects that I could actually complete in a reasonable amount of time. Judy had always told me that I should try out chunky yarn because I could knit up a sweater with it in no time, but this was the first year that I actually decided to take her advice and try it. It was a great thing to get a sweater accomplished in so short a time -- proof that you should always listen to your knitting guru!
