More FOs...
Finally! It took me long enough, but I'm done seaming (well, for the time being at least). I know I complained about seaming, and yet, I can't bring myself to knit seamless garments... There's something about the construction that makes more sense with seams. Not to mention the fact that if you knit a sweater in pieces your rows are way shorter than knitting in the round!
But, enough babbling, you want to see me modelling my cardies, right?!
Finally, I've sewn in a fancy shmancy double sided zipper for my Phildar green cardie. Ta da! This cardie is from the sold out Phildar Tendances Spring 2004, the same magazine that's also brought you the popular Phildar tank top. I bought this magazine when it came out, and always had an eye on this cardie. About a year later, I bought the yarn, Phildar Rivage in Pomme (50% viscose, 50% polyamide! eek!), from Breiweb. (The package mysteriously got lost and Breiweb sent me another one, free of charge! I was relieved, but now I'm afraid to order from them again...). I was very disappointed when I received the yarn however: this is a bright green. Oh, it's so bright that if it's ever foggy, you won't lose me. Nope, not with this eye-searing shade of green! Anyway, it sat in the stash for another year (until the pain in my retinas subsided), and then I decided that it was ridiculous to have all that yarn sitting in the stash, so I grabbed it, cast on, and voila!
Next up: Phildar's Caban Marine, from Tendance Spring '06. 
I used the recommended Phildar Aviso (yummy, super soft cotton) in Marine, 13 skeins. There is one left over. The buttons are from M&J Trimmings. I have to admit though, that I made quite a few mods here and there: I made made the second buttonhole a little higher, I knit the collar from the outside edge in, so that the cast-on edge is the edge that shows, I slipped the first st of every row to get a smooth edge (I hate lumpy garter st edges!), I worked the inc 2 st in... Phildar is not one to give you all these little details. And, not to complain or anything, but does this cardie seem really short on me? The sleeves were bracelet length on the model, and the cardie seemed much longer... Am I that tall? I'm not too worried about it though, because I know cotton can s-t-r-e-t-c-h!
And finally:
Marie gave me some handspun black alpaca, wih some *rainbow glitter* thrown in, about a year ago. She had just received some naturally black alpaca fiber and brought it to the Point, and I couldn't stop touching it... I complained that 100 yds was not enough to make anything, and Marie made another skein for me! Thanks Marie! After petting my beautiful yarn, I decided to make a beret. I simply followed Ann Budd's instructions from The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. I thought the purled side showed the glitter a little better, so I knit it inside out (you didn't think I'd make an entire beret by purling every row, did you?). The regular decreases (k2tog on the knit side) didn't look so great on the purl side though, so I decided to make purled decreases on the knit side, to make them more defined. Did you follow that convoluted thought? The purled decreases look like knits in the sea of purls! They really pop!
(I have to admit that not a single photograph accurately depicts how the yarn is deeply and softly black, and how the glitter subtly changes from pink to blue to yellow).
