blech

After the success of the drops jacket 103-1 (honestly, can they not name these things?), I am now ALL. ABOUT. the chunky knits. I had enough yarn leftover so I cast on for the Aspen hat from Twinkle's big city knits:

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I had originally abandoned that book altogether due to all the controversy over it about sizing (size large -28 inch bust whaaa?) but then was informed that *some* of those measurements were actually from the garment laid out flat. hmmm, so a 56 inch bust for a size large? That didn't seem right. She's got a bit at the front of the book about sizing that states her large bust as 36. Ok, slightly more reasonable I guess, tho still a stretch for MY girls... Anyway, given those instructions, why is there still such a discrepancy between all the patterns?

Nevertheless I clued in that maybe it wasn't as model-body specific as I'd originally thought. So I went hunting for her yarn. And surprise, surprise, it is incredibly expensive. Not to mention the colours I was looking for for the shopping tunic being completely unavailable. So at that point I really did abandon that book in frustration altogether. And speaking of which I notice she's got a new book slated to drop soon:



I am always so jealous of those girls who get to do the smallest size of ANY pattern. Man, that would cut my knitting time in half! So when this last sweater went up in about four days it was like the heaven's opened up and I pulled out Twinkle once again and cast on for the aspen hat for a bit of a Twinkle "trial run". (Two strands of that Shetland Chunky held together got me perfect gauge for anything requiring "twinkle soft chunky.").

Looks cute in a photo, right? (the Ponch-man is thrilled to be posing with me...)



Right, well, not so much up close:

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I seriously do not know how it came to pass that I was doing my decreases on the right side. And because it's such a chunky knit they are GLARINGLY obvious. Some of her pattern instructions are vague at.best.

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I should have realized this before also casting on for the balthazar vest:

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(howz that for some giant honkin' stitch markers?)

When I started knitting the vest I thought, hmmm, this doesn't look like it will fit over my HEAD let alone my hips, but I pressed on (the vest is done now-- photos to come...).

I think the hat would have come out really cute if I'd actually managed to do the decreases on the correct side. I quickly basted on a button just for the sake of those photos, but I actually plan to frog the whole thing. If there had been more work involved in it I might be more upset about it, but it seriously took less that and hour to knit. Dare I say even half an hour to 45 minutes---so for now I'm just considering it one big swatch. I think I will knit again again and throw it on the "fast-gifts-knit-pile", but this time I might actually be able to figure out the instructions.

The Phildar vest is also on the sticks now too (what is up with all the grey I'm doing?!) and after doing all this chunky stuff now feels agonizingly slow.