This is the first sweater I've ever knit for myself - I've been knitting for 14 years. I've made sweaters before - my parents, my grandparents, my husband, various babies, but never for myself. I am hooked. I didn't realize it would be like this - I didn't know that it would fit perfectly, and be so soft, and just my color, with sleeves just the right length.
The Bleeding Heart Raglan is a top-down raglan that I made up pretty much as I went along. It's named after the lace panels (Bleeding Heart Lace). I love Bleeding Hearts in real life and everything just clicked together for this project. It took 19 skeins of Classic Elite Waterlily in the Bramble colorway. I initially did a different neckline, but it looked really sloppy, so I pulled out the neck and then knitted the colar ribbing up.
There are a few things I would do differently were I to make it again (not a crazy suggestion, have I mentioned that I LOVE this sweater?). I would futz with the CO number a little bit, to make the upper ribbing easier to place, and I would change the shaping a little bit too. Right now the back and front are identical - I would make the back narrower. I might make the whole sweater a smidge smaller, actually - the Waterlily grew a little bit when I blocked it. I still think it looks great though.
Now all I can think about is knitting more sweaters for myself, and more and more! A wonderful friend gave me a skein of Manos Wool Classica in the Dove colorway (my middle name is Dove, my husband calls me Dovie, which is my favorite name) and I'm knitting it into a little neckwarmer. Really I want to knit it into a sweater with a colorwork yoke all out of Manos - it's just so beautiful - gray and pale peach and sage all at once. Or I want to make a February Lady out of Happy Forest Dream in Color Classy. Or a hoodie out of Night Watch Dream in Color Classy.
Because I do not have the money to do any of these things, I've started my new Heartwarmer. The Wisconsin Heartwamer. So far I'm still in the boring (but awesome) purple section. I made this shawl once before, for my sister. (By the way, the one I made for my sister is on the Ravelry page for the pattern - pictures 4 & 5.) I really think that it's one of the most beautiful things that I've ever made:
And so I decided that it's time for me to start my very own. After I finished hers I went ahead and bought the yarn to make one for myself, so I've had it stashed for over a year. The cool thing though, is that because I could write a book called Let's Not Waste any Yarn, Shall We? I'm using the leftovers from hers and combining them with the yarn I bought four months later for mine. Mountain Colors dye lots are so different that her purple was really purpley/red, and the one I bought for mine is realy more purpley/blue/brown, so they are combining in a really pretty and subtle way. (I'm doing two rows each and then switching to the other ball.)
Sock progress remains slow. When I work on them they zip, but I'm so distracted by the Wisconsin Heartwarmer that I'm not working on them much. Jorah's Christmas Tree of Life sweater made a huge leap forward (I finished the front and started the sleeves.) But then I stopped. I'll go back to it though - Heartwarmer is on tiny needles, my hands like a gauge change every so often.
This all adds up to Two Thousand and Mine - as the Selfish Knitters on Ravelry have christened 2009. I've never knit much for myself before, but now I'm all about it.
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