New sweater project and a new quilt

Wow guys! Thank you so much for all the nice comments on Aftur! I only wish I was going to be able to wear it a little more this season, but I do believe San Diego's lovely weather is back. And while I certainly can't complain about that (this weekend was amazing!), it doesn't allow too much for wool winter sweaters.

Finishing Aftur also meant it was time to pick out a new sweater project! I quickly decided on Coraline, Ysolda's new pattern. What I really like about this sweater is that it is knit out of a smaller gauge yarn and is mostly open in the front, so it doesn't have a big 'warm sweater' look to it. But, since mine will be out of alpaca, it will be perfectly warm for the sub-zero fridge that I sit in all day called my office. So big bonus points that it won't look seasonally out of place!

The yarn I decided on is Baby Twist from Alpaca with a Twist in the color Rose Grey. This was no easy decision by any means. Budget was a factor, but so was the fiber, because while I don't seem to be bothered by most wools, adult alpaca drives my skin crazy. I spent a good bit of time feeling various alpaca yarns and it seems that as long as it is baby alpaca, I can handle it. Ultra fine alpaca or just plain old alpaca simply has too many guard hairs and its these little puppies that make me itch.

(the color on this photo is more accurate)

So with that in mind, I set out to find the yarn with the highest quality for the price. (We are all about bang for your buck around here!) I didn't mind spending a little bit of money since I had recently worked a good chunk of overtime and I also knew that the gauge of this sweater would get me a lot of knitting time, but I'm far from loaded. So I looked closely at what I could get for the yardage. I really, honestly tried to buy the yarn from a LYS, but for various reasons, I had no such luck. I ended up placing my order through the Loopy Ewe on a Monday and had my yarn on a Wednesday! THAT my friends is customer service! The only problem is that the hanks are huge, (over 500 yards), so to get mostly the right amount, I actually ended up short by a few yards for my size. I am hoping that the yardage estimate for this project is as generous as it was for Verity, otherwise, there may be some tears forthcoming. I've since cast on and am slowly making my way though the hem.

I've also got a quilt FO to share. This is the quilt that I showed off a little bit here. I made it with a fat quarter pack of Heather Ross fabric that I picked up on a whim (it is that soft!).

I decided on the size of my squares based on the amount of fabric I had available for the backing, which was about 1 3/4 yards, as well as minimizing waste and leftovers from the fat quarters. The big squares also served to show off the spaced out prints well. I had some pretty cheap batting so my quilting lines had to be pretty close together and they ended up like this:

I used blue painter's tape to mark off the lines and it worked really well as a guide while I sewed. I think this project would be perfect for a baby quilt and plan on making variations on this theme for potential baby gifts.

This one however is for Jenny and I do believe its new owner seems to be enjoying it.