Alpaca raglan sweater and a new plate

I've been both knitting and rosemaling this month.  Someone asked me to paint a plate for his wife for Christmas.  I agreed with some reservations, but the plate is finished and I'm glad I did it. It didn't take as long as I thought it would and it got me back into rosemaling again, before I put the paints away for the holidays.  It was good to get that table cleared off finally this morning.

So first, here is the current state of the Alpaca sweater. 

I bought several skeins of Alpaca in April 2008. The seller had a lovely scarf done in grey, tan and natural.  I wanted to use those colors, but for some reason I bought black, two shades of grey, 2 shades of brown and the tan and natural. Then the next year I bought some more, because I didn't think I had enough to do a complete sweater and it was too much for a scarf and hat.  (These are undyed. They are the color of the animal.)

I did a gauge swatch last year thinking I might use it for the Ivy League vest, but decided not to. When I started again this fall, I did another gauge swatch, and this time tried a color pattern I found in a book by Alice Starmore.  I liked that, so started the sweater out that way.  The part that is below the armholes is the pattern from her book with a wider area of natural.  But at that point I realized I didn't have enough of those colors to finish the sweater and would have to incorporate at least one more color. So I added in the brownish-grey. At this point I used the construction method of the Dale of Norway Sapporo raglan sweater that I did a few years ago. I liked how easily that one went together and it is comfortable.  It's a bit tricky getting the first rows and the decreases going right, so it's easier if the pattern is simple-thus the plain stripes. Now I am hoping I'll have enough of the light tan/beige to finish the yoke. If I do it will be just plain from here on. If I have to add in another color--well I'll cross that bridge when I get there-if I have to.

And second, here is the plate I just painted.  It's 18", so one of the biggest I've done.  I needed to talk to my teacher about pricing and discovered Friday that she was teaching that day, so I went in to the class. I've missed several classes over the years I've taken from her and she has always said I could make them up any time, so I knew it would be okay to show up for the last class of the year. 

It was helpful to have her advice for finishing the plate and she also helped with some of the outer linework. I really need to practice that more, so I can do it myself.  I'm going to make a New Year's resolution to paint more next year.  The design in this plate is inspired by one by Marlys Hammer, from whom I took a class last year.

This is probably my last post here before the holidays.

 

So Happy Holidays to all!! 

 

See you in 2010!  We are going to have to think when we write the date next year and stop before we put 2 zeros down.  I'll bet most people will be writing 200 and then squeezing a 1 in between the 00's.