Two Finished Projects!

The advantage of working on several projects at once is that when you pick up one you've had going for awhile, you discover that it's almost finished. That's how I have finished so many things lately, and these two items are among the projects I have finished recently.

The first is the copycat Reese Witherspoon Sweet Home Alabama wrap. It's the first and so far the only project I've done without a pattern. I had some help from Lucille, and it finally came out ok. I had to start over a couple of times to get the needle size (10) and stitch choices (stockinette, seed stitch, yo increases) right, and then I had to start the finish over three times. That's my own fault; I decided that the instructions were so easy that I didn't need to read them.

I had to have an angled end, and on my first try, I started the decreases at the stockinette (top) of the wrap. Nope. The angle was going the wrong way.

Second try: I did the yarnovers on the right side, the decreases on the wrong side. Hmmmm...Odd that the edge is all wobbly.....What's causing that?

So then I read the instructions. Ooops. On the right side, when I did the yarnovers, I needed to knit two together so I wasn't increasing a stitch. What I had been doing was on the right side, increasing one stitch and on the wrong side, decreasing one stitch. Hence the wobbly-ness.

So on the third try, I got it. Whew.

It's finished and blocked and I'm quite happy with it. After I show it off at knit night tomorrow, I'll ship it to younger daughter.

The second project is my sparkly scarf. I love all things sparkly, so I especially love this. Knitting with sequins on the yarn is a little tricky, but just takes patience (which I didn't use to have, but knitting is encouraging me to learn).

Can you see the sparklies???

And on the bad side, Cat has peed on the laundry room floor two nights in a row. We thought he had stopped, but he was just messing with us. Rats...

The Copycat Reese Witherspoon Wrap

I am finally, after five starts, making progress on the wrap I promised younger daughter in exchange for her putting all that mohair fringe on my wrap when she was here in July.

This is the first project I have ever made without a pattern, but with, instead, just an idea: the wrap worn by Reese Witherspoon in one scene in Sweet Home Alabama. I started out knitting it completely in garter stitch, but that was boring and kind of plain. Then I went through sizes 7, 8, 9, and now size 10 needles until I got a fabric I liked. On tens the fabric drapes nicely. I took the whole thing to last week's Knit-Night and asked for help. Thank goodness for kindred knitters!

Lucille (thanks Lucille!) showed me a project she had started using a stockinette border, seed stitch body, and increases to get the angled side. On my first attempt, I used a knit or purl into the front and back of the next-to-the last stitch on the front side for the increases and ended up with a wobbly edge. Lucille suggested a yarnover increase, and that has worked beautifully - giving the edge a tiny bit of the look of lace.

The yarn is Cascade Pastaza (50% Llama and 50% wool) in color 289, a really pretty sort of blue/gray. I started with three stitches and increased on the front side until I had forty-five stitches. The wrap will be about fourteen inches wide. I'm not sure how to do the decreases on the other end in order to have the same lace appearance, but I'm very sure that Lucille will know!