FO Friday: Harvest Sweater

It took four attempts, but I finally have a sweater that I knit that fits!

I finished my Harvest Sweater at Knitting Camp and even Meg Swansen approves:

She liked the way it fits across the back:

Yep, I'm pretty proud!

This Tin Can Knits design is a great pattern. Not only is it free, but it is designed to be a first sweater so it comes with clear, detailed instructions. Even I could follow them! The yarn is Cascade 220 in a heathered pink. It took five skeins, meaning that the sweater only cost me about $45.

(The first three sweaters are in landfills somewhere.)

Have a great weekend. I'm headed to Chicago for an Urban Sketching workshop.

It Fits!

First things first: My mom's pacemaker surgery went well and she was able to go home the next day. She has had a lot of surgeries in her life, and she is quite a trooper about them.

My Harvest sweater actually fits! After three completely disastrous attempts at sweater-making, I am as surprised as I am happy that this one is working out. Now I just have the sleeves, and I can't believe they won't be relatively easy.

My current book is a Victorian novel, North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell:

I took a ton of Victorian lit classes when I was an undergrad, but it has been a couple decades since I read one. I haven't read Gaskell before, so I didn't realize that she is easier to read than Dickens or Eliot. I'm sure one of the reasons I was drawn to this book is that one of its themes is inequality. As a teacher in an urban school, it's hard not to focus on this issue.

I'm joining up with Ginny for Yarn Along.

It's working!

I'm a bit afraid of jinxing myself, but I'm optimistic about this sweater! I tried on Harvest this weekend, and it fits. I see the beauty of top down! It's even beginning to look like a sweater:

I'm making it out of Cascade 220 in a pink heather, and I'm liking the color. That's a good thing because I have a lot of stockinette ahead of me!

We seem to have gone from late winter weather directly into summer. I headed out on my bike Saturday and Sunday, and it was glorious. Sunday I biked with my sketching friend Tsela. We went to the Arboretum, where we drew the azaleas:

It was a good weekend of times with friends and family. Seth has finished the second year of vet school and is volunteering with a vet this summer, so I hope to see more of him. And there are just three more weeks of school -- not that I'm county.

This Time I'm Serious

I won't feel like real knitter until I make a sweater that I can wear. I've tried a few times and the results were disastrous. Last week, I read a post (and I am so sorry that I can't remember who's blog it was on) singing the praises of Harvest. It is a Tin Can Knits sweater designed for the rank beginner.

So, I cast on this weekend using a Cascade 220 heathered pink. So far, so good. I know it's ridiculous to start a warm sweater in May, but I have to take advantage of my current inspiration. Wish me luck!

And I started a great book: Heat & Light by Jennifer Haigh. I read an older book of hers recently, Baker Towers, and loved it! The New York Times gave Heat & Light a glowing review, and I had a coupon for Barnes and Noble:

I'm about 80 pages into it, and I am completely immersed in this contemporary story about Baker Towers, the Pennsylvania mining town featured in the earlier book. It is set around the issue of fracking and how that affects various members of the community. It's a much more ambitious novel than Baker Towers and so far Haigh is pulling it off.

I'll be joining up with Ginny for Yarn Along.