The Sweatshop of Love Blog

Remember that pile of gray and green stockinette stitch I showed off in a few WIP posts this fall? That magically turned into this!

PT's Sweater!

PT’s Christmas sweater! It’s Emilien by Ariane Caron-Lacoste, a zip up hooded striped cardigan, and quite a boring knit! Thank god for those stripes or I would have had a hard time getting through those sleeves!

Zipper! Stripes! Cute Boy!

I knit the 36″ size and it’s a little big, even though I already sized down by knitting the 36. As you can see, the sleeves are cuffed which makes them shorter and smaller and the sweater wearable. Which, I’m happy to report, PT does! This sweater has already gotten more wear out of this sweater than the other two I knit him, so that is a success in my book.

Large Hood, Weird Striping

The pattern was a little frustrating. Even though its shown in the pattern to be a striped cardigan, the pattern isn’t written to be striped. At the end it’s suggested that you do a 22 row stripe pattern if you want your sweater to be striped, so I did that and ended up with stripes that didn’t work out. You can see in this shot that the bottom of the sweater is in the contrasting color, half St st and half rib, when it should have ended in the main color, like the sleeves. I was too far in to pull back and re-math out the stripes to work out for my striping and gauge (which was on!). And the hood is gigantic, even though I saw on ravelry that knitters said the hood was gigantic so I eliminated the shaping. That was not enough!

Success!

But I can’t really complain. PT likes it, and I think it looks great! I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Mist and Aurora Heather and PT was on board with the colors, and didn’t even mention the weird striping! I’m putting this one in the win category, and also vowing to take a break from the PT Christmas sweater knitting in 2012. It’s just too much damn pressure!

Pattern: Emilien by Ariane Caron-Lacoste

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Mist and Aurora Heather

Needles: Size 7 circs

Ravelry Project Page

Every time a new year starts I’m always convinced I’m talking about a year in the far far far future. 2012? How can that be now? My head might forever live in the 90s. It’s 1997, right? I can’t really deal with the fact that we live in 2012! Somewhere George Orwell’s brain is exploding.

But we aren’t here to talk about the future. We are here to talk about 2011, a year that seriously rocked out.

Lake of the Isles

I moved to Minneapolis in Dec, 2010, so I spent the winter of 2011 falling in love with living in a frozen tundra.

Baby Nolan in Minneapolis

My nephew Baby Nolan and family came to Minneapolis from Michigan to check it out.

Renegade Craft Fair Brooklyn

PT and I went on a road trip to New York City where I was in Renegade Craft Fair Brooklyn. We drove around the east coast for a while, visiting friends and eating a million bagels.

Baby Ryenn

Our family welcomed another member! Baby Ryenn joined her brother Baby Nolan in my brother Adam’s growing family.

Minnesota State Fair

I was back in Minneapolis for the summer, enjoying the Minnesota State Fair along the way. After spending the fall working in Chicago, I was ready for a long break in Michigan for the holidays!

Baby Ryenn Getting Big!

So much like 2010, in 2011 I traveled a ton, knit a ton, and grew my business. It was my most successful year yet! And just like at the end of 2010, I’m feeling so lucky to be leading the life I am. The Sweatshop is more popular than ever, and I’m happy and healthy. I get to design, teach, and talk about knitting all day every day, and that is all that this girl can ask for.

2012 is shaping up to be my best year yet! Holla Knits is launching in April, I’ve got a TON of travel already scheduled (SPAIN! NYC! BOSTON! maybe even INDIA!), and I may or may not have a book in the works.

Life is pretty damn good over here, y’all, and I have all of you to thank. I couldn’t do it without you, my friends (both in life and online) and family. I wish you all the same.

Happy new year! I wasn’t going into last week thinking I would take it off, but that is just how it happened. I was just having a lot of fun playing with babies and eating fudge. I got a nasty cold somewhere in there, too, and packed it in.

Baby Ryenn

But between my niece Ryenn here being cuddly and adorable, and playing a ton with Baby Nolan, you can’t really blame me, can you?

My New Yarn Bowl!

We’ve been talking a ton about all the gifts I’ve made for my friends and family members, so it’s about time I get to talk about all the beautiful handmade gifts I’ve received this season. Starting with this amazing yarn bowl made for me by a friend’s husband.

Button Coil Scarf

My friend Stefanie made me this beautiful coiled scarfy cowl that I have been wearing nonstop since getting it! It’s Ann Weaver’s Button Coil pattern, if you are interested.

Yarn Ball Wreath

My mom knocked it out of the park in the handmade gift department this year, making me this beautiful yarn wreath! It’s really fun and a year round decoration. I hung it up really high so the cats wouldn’t be tempted.

New Bag!

And she made me this beautiful knit bag! Aren’t the colors fantastic? I already rocked this bag at the Mall of America this weekend! She used this Lion Brand free knitting pattern, Cable Ready Bag.

Woven Place Mats

And she made these beautiful place mats! They are woven, and she said making them was a huge bitch and she is never going to do anything like it ever again. I’m lucky to be the only person with her only woven pieces!

Pom Pom Rug

And last but not least, my sister in law Emily (who just started a new blog!) made me this beautiful pom pom rug! I’m in love with it, but not as much as the cats are. It’s right next to the radiator in the bathroom, so it’s like kitty heaven.

I’m so lucky to have so many creative people in my life. Trading handmade gifts is one of the best feelings ever, and as you can see, I’ve done it a lot lately! What amazing handmade gift did you receive this season?

Every single gift I’m giving this season is handmade. 100%. If I didn’t make it with my own two hands, I bought it from someone who did.

My Knit Gifts

I knit 15 gifts this year. I started in July! I worked in other knitting along the way and I’m taking a break from putting the finishing touches on a few things to write this post, 3 days before Christmas. There is stuff in that pic I haven’t written here about yet because I want them to be a surprise! So yeah. I’ve been a really busy knitter.

I’m lucky to have a lot of people in my life who appreciate handmade gifts. And I’m pretty good at finding patterns for ridiculous things that are joke gifts, which helps!

Soldier Field L Sign by CitizenShay

I’ve also got people on my list that don’t appreciate hand knits as much as others, so in those cases I’ve found other people to fill in the gap. I got this print of a Chicago L sign for Soldier Field for my dad, because while he is a Lions fan, he comes to Soldier Field every year for a Lions Bears game, and Chicago is awesome, so this printed canvas is a fun reminder of that. CitizenShay has lots of fun Chicago L signs and are worth checking out!

Octophant Print

I thought my brother Matthew would like this print from Octophant, who does a lot of crazy interesting prints and illustrations. My brother is really into history and music, and the medieval feel of this gig poster I thought fit the bill.

So there you have it! I’m 100% handmade for the holidays. There is always room for improvement, of course. I bought my holiday cards and never got to the mitten gift tags I wanted to make. Next year I’ll be even MORE hand made. Because that is just how we roll.

I headed up from Chicago to Michigan last Monday with nothing on my to do list but knitting, snuggling babies, watching football, and eating for a week, and that is exactly what I did.

Baby Ryenn

My new niece Baby Ryenn is getting cuter by the second. She was pretty damn cute when she was born in July, but LOOK AT THAT FACE!

Baby Nolan!

And speaking of faces you just want to kiss off, Baby Nolan is too cute for words, too. And he is all running around and feeding himself! And he finally has hair! It’s a Thanksgiving miracle!

TINY SWEATERS!

Since those babies were born, knitting time in Michigan has severely diminished, but I did get a head start on my Snow Day projects! I saw this pattern in the Knit Picks catalog and just had to have it, so I ordered the entire kit. All NINE skeins of  Palette and the pattern. The Snow Day pattern is full of adorable tiny projects that need to be on my Christmas tree, and they could not be more fun to make. Six sweaters, a penguin, a sled, a felted gingerbread man, tree lights, and a string of popcorn. Three down, eight to go!

Short Row Sweater Progress... ?

And it’s hard to tell what the hell is going on with my Short Row Sweater, but progress is being made! I ran into problems with the stitch counts after separating for my sleeves, so if you are working this pattern just ignore them. The instructions for what you are doing is right despite the stitch counts being wrong. I wrote more specifically about what is wrong on my ravelry project page.

Oh! I almost forgot!

Winner!

A huge thank you to everyone that entered my Wool and the Gang Snood Dogg knit kit giveaway last week! The lucky winner is Lily of The Owl and The Bee! This makes me even more jealous because now I’ll have to see it all the time! You lucky bitch!

I’m in and out of Chicago this week. I got back into town yesterday and I’m Megabus-ing to Minneapolis Thursday for No Coast Craft-o-Rama this weekend. It’s going to be a crazy couple of weeks over here!