nothing but a store model

  

another nothing but a t-shirt in Rowan Calmer
and a one skein wonder shrug in nothing but leftovers!

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Look what I wore to work yesterday!

why, it's a one skein wonder!

And again I surprise myself by falling for a mega-popular pattern that's been making the rounds on the blogs. But Stefanie's One Skein Wonder was just too cute not to try out. My only problem: I'm not a shrug girl, especially when it comes to a tiny shrug of heavy worsted weight yarn. Skimpy + bulky = I don't get it. But I so wanted to make one! Then it suddenly occured to me that I have several individual balls of Calmer leftover from the various nothing but t-shirts that I've made. Now a tiny shrug in my favorite, lightweight, super-soft cotton yarn, that I can do. I bought the pattern Friday afternoon, dug out the "tinkerbell" blue Calmer scraps from the model tee and my calculator to recalculate for my gauge and started knitting that night. On Saturday, I picked up a second ball of the Calmer (the smaller gauge made it a "just more than one skein wonder") and finished it up to wear to work at the store on Sunday.

I really like this silly little thing. Mine is a bit looser than the original since I was experimenting with the numbers all the way, but I can definitely appreciate the extra little bit of armpit and upper arm coverage. It's so fun to wear. I can so see myself pulling this cutie pie on over a tank. It's brilliant! I may have to make more. Heaven knows I've got plenty of "one skeins" left waiting to become wonders.

After some very late-night seaming, my model nothing but a t-shirt is all finished and already in the window of the store.

we finally get some sun and it ruins my shot!
here's an indoor pic.

I really enjoyed making this pattern again and the Calmer was just as incredible as I remembered. I would have loved to do a little design on the front, but the owner wanted a plain front. Still, even plain, I love these colors together! I don't know how I could ever have doubted how great they'd look together.

So, now that I've made this pattern again and have it fresh in my mind, I thought I'd open the comments here to pattern questions. One question I can answer regards how many straight rows should be knitted between the waist decreases and bust increases. The way the pattern is written, it seems to call for a total of 31 or 32 total straight rows. I checked the original shirt I made and I knit 24 straight rows between the decreases. I'll send the correction over to MagKnits.

Other questions? Shoot!

To answer Carla, no sockapalooza two sign-up yet. I'm working on the behind the scenes organization. Should be done by next week! At which time, it might actually be warm here in Boston, meaning I'll have to stop wearing my winter sockapalooza socks and will be ready for a summer pair.

In other knitalong news, my NBaT is now a pile of completed parts waiting for seaming. I can't wait to appear in Nona's regular wrap-up!

S wanted to be in the picture too

And there's yet another store model and another knitalong to report on. Okay, I'm a year late for the knitalong, but with all the excitement surrounding the impending release of the next Harry Potter book (what Jenn, no countdown?), I've started an Azkaban scarf. If you aren't obsessed with Harry Potter like me and some others whom I've already outed and so won't name again, let me point out that in the third movie, the Prisoner of Azkaban, they changed the style of the house scarves. For the first two movies, they were basic rugby-style stripes, but now the scarves are darker with subtler stripes.

This version seems much more mature. And also much longer! I'm using Jamieson's Shetland DK, which had the best colors in my opinion, but seven feet of scarf at 5.5 stitches to the inch is, well, a lot of stitches. I'm loving it though!

Number one done.

Number two to do.

So, what do you think of the contrast color? I didn't pick it out myself. The yarn for the store model was picked out by powers higher than me. I think the burgundy looks good when the main color is looking blue-ish. But in it's more lilac moments, I'm not quite so sure.

We're down to about four sockapaloozers still knitting away. Two make-up gifties have already been sent out to waiting pals. Go sock pals and doners!

And look, some sockapalooza socks have recently arrived on my doorstep too.

blue crocheted socks - how cool!

It's a second pair of socks from my sock pal, Andrea! She sent me these along with the lovely cream-colored pair I posted about in March, but these were too tight for me to wear. Andrea was kind enough to offer to widen them a bit for me and now they fit perfectly. Hooray! In exchange for her fixing my socks, I've offered to fix the supercool socks she got from her pal.

the pattern is from Vogue Knitting On the Go: Socks

These beautiful socks were knit by Shirley, who's a little too busy right now to fix up Andrea's socks, but will be sending me her extra yarn, so I can try it.

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Speaking of fixing, my pop sweater is still unfinished. And with the arrival of warmer weather, I'd say that it's likely to stay that way through the summer. So it looks like the fix-a-thon has pretty much wrapped up. Here are a few final fixes to show you:

Emily's tank finally fits!
Nicole's Rosedale is gorgeous.
Erin turned a tank-gone-wrong into a bodice for a little dress for her daughter (scroll down to April 24). Awwwww!
Leanne reports that she has finished two projects and ripped out another (check out her fix-it nightmare!).
Ellen reports that she lengthened sleeves on one sweater by ripping out an oversized collar and then ripped another sweater out, dyed the yarn, and will reknit it in a different pattern. You go, girl!
And Suzanne did a great job fixing a way-too-big denim sweater for her son: before and after. Look at that cute little smile!

Send me more links if there are other fixes out there. I wanna see!

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And elsewhere in Knitalong-land, I guess I'm sort of knitting along with the NBaT'ers over at Nona's. So here's my progress...

model tee: front and back

And more blue blog designs I've seen:

Beth's Tricot in Manos Stria
Kim's fabby Rutgers NBaT (scroll down to bottom) and her new Mets NBaTank (scroll down to May 12) Go Mets!
Anna's rockin' chocolate brown scoop-neck NBaT
And Rosemary's Spring Fling Tank in Lion Brand Polarspun

Wonderful knits, ladies. Thanks so much for sharing them with me!

Well, at least I am. Yup, I'm at the store the whole weekend again. If we're not swamped, I'll be knitting a bit on my store model nothing but a t-shirt. Hey, knitting I can legitimately do at work - cool!

Doh! I made the back too short. Guess I'll start with a little frogging.

And a little bird told me that the store is going to have a nothing but a t-shirt class! Six weeks to make a NBaT with me. You know what that means: I've got an excuse to make another one!

My store model nothing but a t-shirt is underway!

Is it okay to say how very much I'm enjoying knitting another one of these? This new blue shade of Calmer is really cool - sometimes it's positively purple looking and then other times it appears to be a true baby blue. Very neat color. How did my LYS know that I'd like the blue? Wink, wink.