Knitting, my true crafterly love

As much as I have enjoyed all my sewing recently (Halloween costumes and dolls), knitting remains my true crafterly love. I am cruising along on my Salina sweater and have already completed the back, most of the left front and the right front up to the armpits. Am really loving how this sweater is shaping up and think I will get a lot of use out of it. The wine purple color is a change from my usual gray and I think it will be a nice one.


As always, while I have one knit on the needles I have multiple knits on the brain. My latest urge is to design my own sweaters.

Next on the needles will be some tiny little cardigans for the dolls I am making my nieces for Christmas. These dolls are pretty small so I'm just going to design as I go using some yarn from my stash. I was reading over my copy of Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top and I am so inspired. She has some amazing ideas and I want to try them all (rules of thirds, short row shaping, invisible cast-ons, lots of SEAMLESS knitting).

I think I also might knit gifts for two of my nephews: one of these robots for Oscar and something Star Wars related for Michael. The other six gifts will be sewn because it's faster.

I've also been thinking for a while about a striped pullover inspired by Jared Flood's Turn A Square hat. I bought yarn a while ago and need to do some swatching next. I will use Barbara Walker's instructions once I choose a needle size, figure out gauge and decide on design features.

In other inspirational news, I finally started cutting up a pile of old t-shirts yesterday to make these:

I was inspired by a Knitting Daily post from back in April and have been wanting to do it ever since. I'm not sure what the smaller balls will be become, but I think the larger one (made from parts of 5 t-shirts) will become a boatneck sleeveless top. I got a lot of ideas about executing this idea from perusing Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top. I just found this blog post and am inspired to make more t-shirt yarn using that technique. There will definitely be more posts on these projects as I have time to do more with this recycled yarn.

I am just feeling so inspired these days. Not sure if it's my extra free time now that both boys are in school two mornings a week or the cooler weather or watching Project Runway, but I am ready to design and knit my own sweaters. But first, I have to finish those Halloween costumes, Christmas gifts and Salina sweater. Wish me luck!