Karen Clements and her Chunky Knits

It's Memorial Day weekend and we are all supposed to be enjoying warm weather and thinking ahead to summer; probably not the time to be blogging about big, wooly warm sweaters.  Except it is pretty cool here in Northern California and it has been snowing off and on through part of the weekend at our home near Lake Tahoe:

                                                                         

Notice the snow shovel; we don't put that away until the middle of June.

As I've said before on this blog, I'm not much of a lace knitter and I'm not into knitting projects that call for  smaller needle sizes.  With the exception of socks, patterns that call for size 1 - 6  needles are not my kind of thing, although I am in awe of the incredible work that has been done by many on these finer size needles.  I seem to gravitate towards those patterns that call for size 8 - 11 needles where the pattern works up quickly and there is the hope that this sweater might actually get done before I run out of enthusiasm and it ends up in my WIP pile.  If the needles called for are size 13 or more, even better!

I've been browsing through Pinterest admiring the photos and clever and interesting work done by fiber and  craft artists when I came across Karen Clements and her amazing chunky/bulky  knit designs.   I wanted to knit just about all of them and, on size 17 and 19 needles, by golly, I could probably do it!  Not only are these projects a quick knit, but they are very stylish;  here are a few examples:

                                                                                     

This is the Lakeside Cotton Vest made with Trendsetter cotton yarn in size 17 and 19 needles.
         




This is the LA Magnum Reversible Vest  knit in Cascade's  Magnum with size 19 needles:

                                                                               


Here's a Capelet made in Magnum with size 19 needles:

                                                                   
 
Here's a Magnum capelet done in crochet:

                                                                             


    There's lots more to see on her web site  Knit1la.com   So where does this designer live who turns out these chunky warm styles? Karen is based in the LA area  - go figure!  Hey, even So. Cal can get damp and chilly in the winter.  Personally, I'm not sure I would want to work with Cascade's Magnum, as it can be scratchy,  but Blue Sky Bulky Alpaca would be a nice choice.


Hope everyone is having a great weekend with some time for knitting and relaxing!







                                                                        

A Summer Sweater

My swing cardigan, Alexandra, is moving right along.  I've got one half of the front done and working on the other half:

                                                                               

This Azapa yarn is nice to work with - very soft and the colors are great.  Unfortunately, my photography isn't doing this justice.  Starting to plan for a summer sweater project and I have narrowed the possibilities down to the following:

                                                                                   

This is a Jenny Watson design called Elizabeth and the yarn is Araucania Nature Wool but I would probably use a cotton blend for this.


This is Hannah Fettig's Wispy Cardi and I think this is so cute and a quick knit as well.  It was knit with Quince and Co.'s Lark:

                                                                               

I found this pattern on Quince and Co.'s pattern page and I think this is the one I am going to make.  It's called Olga and unfortunately, the sample is in white so it doesn't show up very well here:

                                                                                 

It's done in Quince and Co's Chickadee but I found some yarn in my stash that I think will work well with this.  It's Reynolds  Coco that I bought at Webs a long time ago and just never found the right project for it.

                                                                                     
 
    Here's a better picture of Olga.  This was done by korallik and she was kind enough to allow me to use a picture of her version:

                                                                               

    
    Happy Fiber Arts Friday and have a great Memorial Day Weekend!  

                                                               


                                                                                   
                                                                                         

                                                                           

My Bandwidth and a New Project

I love knitting hats - you can finish them so quickly!  Here's my Bandwidth hat which is a Stephen West design.  I used Madelinetosh Vintage and now I know why everyone is talking about this yarn company  - the colors are gorgeous and the yarn is so soft.

                                                                             
   

                                                                                     


Here's a better picture of my finished Montana Cardigan:

                                                                 


On to a new project.  I am making this swing cardigan for my daughter with hand dyed Azapa yarn from Araucania.  Jenny Watson is the designer and it's called Alexandra from the Araucania Collection, Book 1:

                                                                               
 

 

This is the second project I have made with this yarn - it is so soft and warm!  The fiber content is alpaca, merino and silk  and the colors are so rich:

 

Have a good weekend and Happy Fiber Arts Friday - check out Andrea's blog for more inspiration!