Chugging away on a minimum of three different projects right now, but somehow I’m managing to make good progress on all of them. Doesn’t hurt that my “At computer” project is one of the speediest things I’ve ever made.
Here’s the first in a set of Filigree gloves from Knitting New Mittens & Gloves. I’m the first on Ravelry to have a picture of the elbow length version up, and I have to say I was a little worried about how they’d turn out. First of all, the directions for that lovely openwork stitch pattern at a bit confusing when you first get a look at them. I remember starting the first glove, finishing the purl row-knit row-purl row cuff, looking at the stitch pattern and literally blinking at it in confusion like a cartoon character. I set the glove down, made a cup of tea, and sat back for a few minutes looking from the glove, to the directions, back to the glove. First few tries were pure failure, but now that I’ve got it right, I feel kinda stupid for not getting it right away. Something about the wording must have set off the “lol wut?” part of my brain.
As to the yarn I’m using (Rowan Handknit cotton) it’s, as usual, a substitution, but the yarn called for is also 100% cotton, so I figured it’d be a justifiable substitute. I was nervous about how well the mitt would hold its shape in the cotton, like if it would stretch out so bad it’d end up around my wrist, but it seems to be gripping nicely. One thing I could do without is that they *really* seem to have overestimated the yarn amount. It took my less than 1 skien to make one elbow length mitt. Whit any luck the nice yarn store will let me return the third skein I know I’m not even going to touch.
Speaking of yarn without a prupose, it’s become a serious issue for me. In terms of wool based yarn, it’s not much of a problem. I’ve got at least a general idea for, I’d say, 90% of it. If there’s no pattern in mind, it’s going to the Babette blanket…but what about all this crappy acrylic? Please note that I said “crappy” acrylic. There is some fine acrylic out there…this isn’t it. It’s old Red Heart Super Saver from at least 8 years ago before they “reformulated.” It’s rough and squeaky. I’m hesitant to even make toys out of some of this stuff. Making a blanket is right out. I’d LOVE to find somewhere to donate it, and there’s a nursing home right in my town that might find use for it in a craft class or just as something for the residents to pass the time with. It’s not useless, I just don’t want it based on the colors and the feel. I can only use so much waste yarn for invisible cast ons and stitch holders. The last thing I want to do is throw it away, but I don’t think anyone would even want to trade for it.
On a final note, I finally found the pattern for the Toujours Pur socks! My mother decided to “clean up” my desk over a month ago meaning I lost about 25 pieces of paper that I needed ranging from several printed out knitting patterns to important flight information about getting to my friend’s wedding in North Carolina. I will never see those things again, but I guess the thickness of the paper on the sock pattern made her hold off on just tossing it out. So now that second sock (which has been languishing since March at least) is getting a little attention again. At this rate I may finish it before August. Weee!
This is the Flutter Sleeve Cardigan for the Spring Interweave. I’ve actually been working on it since the beginning of the month, but as busy as I’ve been, bloging’s gotten shoved down the priority list. I’m knitting it in Rowan Handknit Cotton, a yarn that doesn’t seem to get much use in full sized sweaters if my skimming of Ravelry is any indication. But so far I’ve got nothing but love for this stuff. It’s got a good hand and shows texture very well. Plus it comes in like a billion colors. I’m also really enjoying the pattern itself. The “kimono construction” is really neat and I’ve never done anything like it before. I am, however, concerned about how well my short-rows are concealing themselves in this yarn. A good blocking should cover up the little gaps (I’m hesitant to call them holes). Then there’s the ever popular “I sure hope I’m reading this pattern right..” paranoia, but that’s nothing new.
The other really active project is the Victorian Lace Today Melon Shawl. I really need to get trucking on this one since I want to be able to wear it to a wedding in early June. Sure the wedding is in North Carolina and the last thing I’m going to want is some fuzzy whatever stuck to my shoulders, but it’s always good to have something like a shawl on hand just in case. This is a gorgeous pattern and deserves all the raves it’s gotten. Super easy to memorize and execute, it’s surprisingly good TV knitting.
can’t do simple right now because I’ve had to rip the thing back to the end of the body THREE TIMES. One was me being completely stupid and trying to mess with the decrease pattern. Resulting hat didn’t fit at all and looked dumb, so I ripped it back to a three inch body (as stated in the pattern), and then proceeded to screw up the decrease order another two times. What the hell is the matter with me? I’d just say “screw it” and move on at this point but the Koigu is so pretty and so expensive and I’m SO stubborn. But now the hat just feels like it’s in the way sicne I swore I would not start the Flutter Cardigan until it was finished.
On the other hand, the knitted lace border is going shockingly well. My numbers are a little off on the side loops, but if I fudge the numbers I should get what I need out of it. And if the first corner is a bit off, that’s okay. I’ve never done anything like this before, so imperfection is to be expected and accepted. But now that I’m doing the border it’s hit me that this lace thing is really really fun! I picked up some Kidsilk Haze for the extremely popular “Melon Shawl” in a nice bright green that I think will go well with a dress I have for wearing to a wedding this summer. Sadly it took me two trips to get all the yarn for it. Victorian Lace Today apparently has a history of being a bit short on it’s yardage calculations and thanks to Ravelry I found that I needed 4 balls of KSH, not 3. I should have been able to figure that out with basic math (3 balls of KSH does not add up to 700 yard).
On that note, I finally decided what to do with my outcast natural fiber yarns: Babette blanket. It’s huge but the squares are super fast to make and the modular construction makes me really happy. Like I can put together squares based on color sequences and then find a way to make them fit in the big picture. For example, the purple-black-blue square in the picture looks nice and all, but I don’t think it looks so good next to the big prime square (the blue-green concoction), so I’ll just save it for later! I’ve never been particularly good at seaming crochet, but I guess I have to learn sometime and the crazy resulting blanket will be totally worth it. The trick to this blanket is that I *will not* buy yarn specifically for it. This will be made slowly over time of my leftover worsted bits, and maybe if I figure out some voodoo with the DK that can get rolled in too. Considering I almost always over-buy yarn for a project, the materials shouldn’t be too hard to get 🙂
Lastly, the color cycle of Project Spectrum have changed over to EARTH. I am so all over this one. I have green yarn like you would not believe, with brown also heavily represented in my stash. Like Fire before it, this new cycle gets kicked off with a new beret (maybe even one to replace my sadly felted tweed one 😦 ) It’s the most basic beret pattern on the internet, but the specialness comes from the Koigu I’m using to make it. First of all, I can totally understand the hype over this yarn now. It makes a really bouncy fabric and the colors are amazing. This colorway reminds me of the very beginnings of spring when everything around here is, to be honest, more yellow than green.
I was so proud of myself for finishing the Wishbone sweater. It’s big, it’s warm, I can tuck my legs in to it if need be…it’s exactly what I wanted out of this sweater! Since I finished it a few days ago, it’s been serving as nice alternative to freezing my butt off in the basement. No “in action” shots yet because I was such a mess this morning when I took the pictures. No one needs to see medusa hair and red eyes on a knitting blog.
pattern for Gretel is, as usual for an Ysolda pattern, phenominally well written. It’s amazing just how much quicker a project goes when you have a detailed set of instructions to work with. I’m already lapping the “regular sized” version and headed in to the slouchy. Moreover, this project lead me to learn an all new tublar cast on that I’ll probably be subbing in on any future hats. It makes a great edge that looks very clean. The yarn is also new to me: Rowan Kid Classic in a stormy blue that I love. It’s also much softer than I expected.
Sadly, I ended up with a pretty big problem when it came time to do the toe on the Toujours Pur sock. The pattern includes a standard toe, but *once again* my standard toe came out silly looking and ill fitting. The sock itself is gorgeous so there was no way I could let it lanuish with a terrible toe. I went through all my reference books (I’m obsessed with reference books like dictionaries and encyclopedias and how-to manuals) and discovered the “round toe.” After some creativity with stitch count, I got the sock down to 64 total stitches and followed the instructions in More Sensational Knitted Socks from there. One can never have too complete a reference library, if you ask me.
sweater. I’m using some old Wool-Ease Chunky in Charcol to make a quick pullover for around the house. The gague of 2.5 sts to the inch is *killing* me. I ended up on 17s to make this beast. But the fabric is coming out just how I’d hoped and I’m up to the part where I need to make the sleeves….And here’s where the problems come in. First of all, I don’t have another set of 17s I can work a 20 stitch cast on from. There’s the addis I’m using on the obdy and that basically has surgical tubing for a cord…not so much gonna happen with the magic loop, and I’m not even sure size 17 dpns exist. That’d be quite a sight…But I’m gonna give it my best seeing how the 17 tips and 40″ cords I just ordered for my Options do. If that fails…I can use my hated bargin bin 17s with the gnarly plastic cord of doom and do a two circular trick. Yuck.
Lastly, I’m making a lace…thing. It’s the ultimate in simplicity but it’s really teaching me the structure of lace. The pattern itself consists of a mind boggling 132 repeats of faggoting (I feel like I need to apologize to a couple of friends just for typing that), after which you attach a simple border. I don’t know how to do any of that stuff, so even though it’s not exactly the more eye catching of lace pieces, it’s a valuable learning lesson…one that, clearly, I haven’t gotten very far with. Picked the red while I was in a Project Spectrum-y mood and I still like it. I don’t own enough of the deeper, hotter end of the color chart. The icky pink acrylic (it actually squeeks!) making an appearance in this pic and the house sweater above, is not meant to be included. It’s just my least splitty, most easily visible waste yarn. I made some regretable choices as a beginning knitter.
Art Class Failure 