Adventures in Colorwork - and in Gauge

So it's time to get some photos on this blog, right? I thought I'd start with a recent finished object that represents a major success, and a major failure.



This was sweater was my first large scale color work, and the first time I had worked an entire sweater on US 3s. I'm very pleased with how both of those "firsts" turned out - the color work looks good and it wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be do work the entire sweater on such small needles.



On the negative side, I really got punished by not checking my gauge before starting. This finished product is at least a size or two too big. I love it so much that I will probably wear it anyway, but it is definitely a painful lesson to learn. So much work on tiny needles, just to have it fit poorly!

Produce vs. Use

I was walking to work today, and I realized that I was wearing 4 knit items: my sweater, socks, hat and scarf. That made me think that in the 6 or so years since I have become a serious (read:obsessive) knitter I have transitioned a little from a process knitter to a product knitter.

When I say that I used to be a process knitter, I was never the type of knitter who had to try the newest, harder technique. It was more that I just had to knit at all times, and wasn't too focused on what the output was. I'd knit things as something to do, or because a picture of the finished output looked good with little thought to if the item would look good on me. As I've gotten better as a knitter, I've begun to focus more on producing wearable finished items.

I now wear knit socks almost every day, and am finally wearing most of my knit sweaters. I find it really fun to wear my own products, and it pushes me to make even better looking and better fitting finished works!

Whew

Wow - I got engaged and then promptly fell off the face of the planet. Life got very busy and I forgot about this blog until I stumbled over my old posts today.

Two moves and a year and a half of marriage later, I think I'm ready to start again. One of the many nice parts of marriage is that now I have a (usually) willing photographer to document my craft adventures. He may even be making more of an appearance on this blog in the future...

But for now, I'm saying "Hello again!"