I feel a little strange posting this, as nobody else has posted their projects yet, but as school starts again soon, I might as well post it before I get really busy. 

My project is a tea cozy, because I needed one, and couldn't come up with anything better.  It's knit from Lamb's Pride with 4.5mm needles in the given lace pattern.  I'm working on a pattern for it, if anyone's interested.  It's knit to fit my nearly spherical teapot, which means that if anyone else wants to knit it, they'll have to change the pattern (though it's pretty easy to do so).

It's knit in two directions - a strip that goes horizontally around the teapot and then two lengthwise strips knit up and down from that strip.  It's held on with two crochet chain ties and a button placket.  I would have liked different buttons, but I'm working with what I've got right now.

And now for some pictures:

The whole tea cozy


Close up of the closure.

There are more pictures on my blog, Nevermore Knits, and I'll be posting the pattern there later this week.  Thanks for looking!

After many months, my lace shawl is finally finished.

Full Shawl


Close Up of Edging


Knit out of about 1.5 skeins handpaintedyarn.com's Paris Night laceweight, which was a surprisingly nice yarn for the money.  Some excess dye to rinse out, and a slight vinegar smell when I received it, but nothing too horrible.  Shawl blocked out to larger than I anticipated (not doing a gauge swatch will do that) - it's 78 inches wide (along top edge), and 36 inches deep (from neck edge to point, including lace edging). 

I designed it because it was my first large lace project, and I didn't want to deal with increases in pattern, which most triangular shawl patterns I had seen had.  This pattern was pretty easy to knit, and turned out to be exactly what I wanted. 

Lace knitting is fairly addicting - I think I need a large square shawl next.

So, I wasn't really planning on buying a new wheel today, but I did.  I found a deal I couldn't pass up - an Ashford Elizabeth wheel, for $350 (Canadian).  What I didn't know was that it was going to come with a large shopping bag full of (very nice) fiber, about 8 hand spindles, a book charka, couple dozen back issues of Spin Off, several books, hand cards, lazy kate, and an entire binder full of collected wisdom.  For $350.  Lucky I had my Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket.

Now, to name her (I'm thinking Polly) and find a home for my old wheel (an Ashford Kiwi). 

Also, since I've got this thread going anyway, I got a large amount of 70/30% angora/silk blend fiber.  Any tips on spinning a blend so high in angora?

For those of you who design your own sweater patterns, where do you get your inspiration from?  I'm specifically looking for links to websites like anthropologie.com, where they have many lovely knit sweaters and accessories I can look at for inspiration.  Anyone have any suggestions as to other websites I might look at?

I'd also like any other tips on finding inspiration you might have.

Thanks!

As I now have my camera back, I present my highly modified boobholder - http://glampyreknits.tripod.com/glampyrephotos/id62.html.  As I explained in the boobholder thread, I knew I wouldn't wear a short one, but a lengthened sweater like this would be wonderful - which I made (see the boobholder thread here on craftster), with many modifications.  I decided I needed another one, but a pullover, instead of a cardigan.  The results?

Full view -



Close up of sleeve and neck join -



The colour in these pictures isn't exactly the same as the yarn i used - the actual sweater is more turquoise and much brighter than these pictures.  The yarn was Custom Woolen Mills Mule Spinner Yarns in colour 09 (see http://www.customwoolenmills.com/ for the yarn).  It took 3 4oz skeins to finish (with a little left over).

Modifications:

I followed the original pattern quite faithfully until the "separate sleeves" section.  I had to add a few more raglan increase rows in order to get the back of the sweater to be wide enough.

However, at the 34 row mark where you are supposed to separate the sleeves, I started the "body inceases" in addition to the raglan increases.  From rows 34 - 44 or so (I'm not sure how many rows I did), a right side row would be:

"knit, increasing one stitch before and after each marker."

While wrong side rows would be:

"K5, m1, purl to last 5 stitches, m1 k5."

I did this as the neckline on my cardigan version was too low, and I wanted the neckline higher.

After the back was wide enough, I separated the sleeves (put them onto scrap yarn), and continued with the body/edge increases (the ones on the purl side of the fabric).  When the two sides of the front were wide enough to go around me with the garter stitch edging overlapping, I used something akin to three needle bind off to attach the two sides together at the garter stitch edge. 

At the end of a knit row, before knitting to the end of the border, I slipped the 5 border stitches to a double pointed needle.  I held these stitches in front of the garter stitch border on the other front half of the sweater, and knit through both the right-most stitch in the double pointed needle, and the right most stitch on the circular (as you would in a three needle bind off).  I worked the next two stitches the same way, but rather than passing the first stitch worked over the second (binding them off), I left it on the needle, and worked the last three stitches the same way.

I continued knitting around on the circular needle without any increases or decreases - though I did keep the five neck stitches in garter stitch for 8 rounds (alternate rounds of knitting and purling these 5 stitches).  I continued until the sweater was long enough (I think it was 12.5 inches from the neck join to the bottom), and then did a decrease row ( *k8, k2tog* around) to compensate for the fact that garter stitch is wider than stocking stitch and then added 8 rows of garter stitch (knit one row, purl one row), and then cast off very loosely. 

I finished the sleeves just as the pattern called for.

Wow ... that was alot of explanation.    Anyway, I hope this is helpful for some of you who like the pattern, but no the fact that it's cropped (I also have a lengthened cardigan modification in the boobholder thread itself).

I'm looking for a pattern (or pictures) or a vest I swear I saw mentioneded here on Craftster, but cannot find.  It was a long (knee length) vest with a hood, but didn't have a back until about the waist.  A friend of mine wants one (as she saw it in a movie), but I can't find the topic discussing it.

Thanks!

Yup.  I'm stuck in a knitting rut.  I just finished a lengthened version of Glampyre's Boobholder, and need another project to work on.  I have a hat and a Gryffindor scarf on the go, but they're both at a very tiny gauge, so I don't really like to work on them. 

Anyway, anyone have any suggestions for a fairly quick knitting, large gauge project?  Preferably a free pattern, or just an idea.  I can probably figure out a pattern myself from a picture or descriptiion.  I'm going on vacation May 1st, so I'll need somthing to work on.

Thanks!