The Soapy Knitter

Have you ever heard the saying, “No hagas una tempestad en un vaso de agua?” (Translation: “Don’t make a storm in a cup of water.”) This is usually me. I’m usually the one to freak out over small things and then later say, “ok, it’s not that bad!”

This knit reflects NONE of that attitude! When I first saw this pattern in Knitty I told my friends that I would NOT be making a cardigan where I had to sew 14 buttons!! HELL NO! Yea, well, I ate those words. Happily.

(sorry, blurry pic, but you get the idea!!)

I would love to make another one of these using fingering weight yarn. I would knit a size or two larger because my arms are kind of big. The cardigan is designed to fit snugly so it accentuates my drumstick arms, as you can see by the pictures. Now, ask me if I care?! LOL

And look! A cardigan that actually BUTTONS all the way down for me!! WOO HOO!

One of my favorite features is the buttons.

There’s a story behind them. I originally went to the same store where I bought the buttons for my Capitán Hat. I needed 14 buttons for this cardigan and I REALLY did not want to spend over $1 each, as is the norm in this store. So I’m looking and looking and that’s all I find. So an employee comes up to me and says, “Can I help you?” I said, “I need 14 buttons but I was trying not to spend over $1 each.” He actually SMIRKED at me and then said, “Try Lou Lou Buttons on 38th between 5th and 6th and walked away.” THE EFFIN BASTARD!!! I was beyond pissed. Rolled my eyes at him and said, “I sure WILL!” This older woman who was standing nearby had heard the entire conversation. She said, “What address did he say??” I told her and left.

I went to Lou Lou and let me tell you that the customer service was FANTASTIC. I browsed around a bit and finally asked the gentleman there for help. I pulled out my cardigan and he started pulling out buttons!! He said, “A knitter is an artist and the cardigan should express that. I suggest you use different colored buttons.” Damn, the dude was totally right! The older waoman showed up a few minutes afterwards and I asked her opinion on the colors. She says, “Oh, that’s a beautiful cardigan. I’m a Knitter also.” I felt that K needs to be capitalized in Knitter because she said it as if it were a proper name. I agree. From here on in, I feel as if I’ve graduated to a capital K so that’s what you’ll see! Knitter! But I digress….

So, Lou helped me pick out buttons. These are from Ecuador. They’re called Fruit of the Tree buttons made from Corozo Nuts. And guess what?? I GLADLY paid $1 each for these buttons. GLAD.LY!!! And I’ll be back for more. I suggest anyone in the New York area needing buttons go here, too. Eff that other place!!!

Back to Tempest: Altho the schematic on this pattern says the armhole for the size F is 14.5” and the garment stretches ALOT, I can’t wear anything under the sweater. I will have to use it with tank tops only. That’s fine, but it was an easy and fast enough knit that I would love to have another that I could wear over a T-shirt or a button down shirt w/long sleeves. So I started another using Lorna’s Laces, in a size larger!!!! (Grey’s Corner and Mineshaft colorways.)

All in all, this is a FANTASTIC pattern. I’ve never knit a cardigan so quickly. I mean, all you have to do is count STRIPES as opposed to counting rows. You’d be surprised as to how much time is saved by this!

Thanks for a great pattern, Weaverknits!

Tempest Cardigan

• Source: knitty
• Yarn: Yarn Ahoy Laceweight Merino - a total of 975 yds (pattern calls for a total of 1,310 yds)
• Colorways: Mirage and Overdyed Blacks
• Needles: Size US3, 4 and 6
• Cost: $28 per skein, Blacks colorway: 0.32 used of skein - $8.96, Mirage colorway: 0.46 used of skein - $12.88, 14 buttons from Lou Lou Buttons in NYC - $15.02 - TOTAL COST: $36.86 (not bad for a beautiful cardigan!!!)
• Started: May 14, 2008
• Finished: June 20, 2008
• Size knit: F, 41″ chest
• My gauge: 6 sts and 7 rows per inch
• Mods: I was carrying the unused yarn from each stripe on the side of the knit. The pattern calls for the larger stripes to be 13 rows in this size. This would’ve had me changing colors on rows where the other color was NOT waiting to be picked up so I knit 14 row stripes instead. This worked out perfectly! I think if I would’ve done 13 row stripes the cardigan would’ve fit kind of short anyway, not to mention all those extra ends to weave in!

Why, hello there!!

I’m glad you all enjoyed oogling my new books! Trust me when I tell ya that I’m enjoying them, too!

I have an announcement:  I’ve created a pattern store.  Yep, that’s right.  Your very own one-stop Rosi G. pattern shopping!  Have at it!  Keep an eye on it for new stuff (got two in the works right now!)

I have no yarn pr0n for you today. Instead I bring you shawl pr0n. Just as lovely. Sometimes even lovelier!

Here I bring you Anne Hanson’s Star of Evening shawl.

I’ll give you all ONE guess as to what company’s yarn I used for this shawl.

Yep. You got that right. Schaeffer. After all, it’s my favorite yarn company. Keep that in mind when you wanna spoil Rosi G.

You can see the beautiful detail in this pattern.

You would be AMAZED at how simple it is to knit!! The pattern repeats are ridiculously easy to remember. Hence it only took me a week to finish.

This yarn blocked so well. I love it. OF COURSE I do! It’s Schaeffer!

Star of Evening

• Source: knitspot
• Yarn: Schaeffer Yarn Company Heather - 1.23 skeins (492 yds)
• Colorway: Cobblestone
• Needle: Size US 8
• Cost: $28.50 per skein, used 1.23 = $35.05
• Started: May 22, 2008
• Finished: May 29, 2008
• Size knit: scarf-size in pattern
• Note: The only thing of note is that the pattern calls for 300 yds of laceweight yarn on size 3 needles for the scarf sized. Maybe I used almost 500 yds because I used a fingering weight and size 8 needles.

I GOT SECOND PLACE!! Not bad, eh?? I’ll take it!

Thanks to all who voted for this heffa!! Your vote and support is TRULY appreciated!!

So, by the time I went to lunch at 1:30 pm EST on Friday and knowing that I would get at least ONE of the top 3 prizes, I decided to take a little trip to a certain little bookstore by Bryant Park here in NYC, Kinokuniya. This store carries all Japanese stuff, including LOTS of crafting books!! Chante went a few weeks ago and sent Necia and I an email warning us of this store. Jeanine had ALSO warned me about this store some time back and told me how she drools in there.

Well, shit.

Apparently I don’t know how to heed any warnings. Here are my lunchtime purchases:

What you see there are some notepads, pencils and erasers for my daughters, some playing cards and magazines for my eldest son, a little baggy thingie for someone else and two Japanese stitch pattern books.

Instant love.

So I hurry back to my desk at work. Drool over my books, brag tell my girls about them via Google Chat and then…Jeanine starts sending me all these damn links. And she made me realize that I’d probably need to figure out some of those symbols. So research research and google and Ravelry and phone calls.

And, well, shit.

Had to go back afterwork!!

Yep. THREE Japenese stitch books that show lots of pictures and explain some of the symbols.

Oh, what’s that with the big ass 1000 on it? THAT, my dears, is the MOTHERLOAD of ALL Japanese stitch dictionaries. Yo, this book has sooo many different stitches that it even has a whole section of just crochet stitches. Yup.

So I went home and after a loooong weekend of coddling The Tano cuz of Daddy’s day yesterday (happy belated all ya’ll!), I FINALLY got to spend a couple of hours perusing most of the books. I had to bring the 1000 one to work with me to peruse when I get bored.

Those are all the patterns that caught my eye on my first read-through of these books. HA! Read. That’s a fucking joke cuz I don’t understand jack shit of what’s written in these books. Oh wait. I do!! The numbers and symbols!! Cuz see ya’ll EVERRRRYTHING is CHARTED! WOO HOO!

Those are some of the wonderful colorwork charts found in these books. Now what I LOOOOOVE absolutely LURVE about these books is that at least 90% of the patterns I have NOT seen in one of my dozen or so stitch libraries!! (I have BW #’s 1 - 3, Vogue Stitchionaries, the new Harmony Guides AND the old ones too!).

I wish they taught how to do the colorwork like this so’s everyone’s wrong side looks as fantastic as that shown in this pic below.

In the reference books you see things like shown here. They show you the steps for a bunch of symbols either with pictures or sketches.

I tell you people. From here on in if I EVER mention that I’m heading to that store again, please, please try to stop me. Somebody should physically come over here and take my credit card away! And to think that Jeanine said to me that I couldn’t really do damage in that store. Heffa, doncha know me by now? LOL

Oh, and Jeanine, did I tell you it rained on Friday??? HAHAHAHAHA!!!

(inside joke: I’d told Jeanine that I would go back and purchase the 1000 book on a rainy day, quite probably that it would be raining two weeks from this past Friday (next payday), but shit, as ya’ll can see, that didn’t work!!!)

Happy Knitting ya’ll!!!