21 posts tagged “knitting”
I actually finished this six weeks ago, but never posted! I'm pretty proud of this one...I picked my favorite stitch pattern, planned my stripes, figured out how to make ruffles and managed to create a vertical keyhole without screwing up my pattern that did not lend itself well to a keyhole. All with great success!
I didn't intend for only the pink bands at the end..it was going to stripe with the others (alternating 5 and 10 rows with three colors - would have been neat) but the pink didn't look as great with my coat as I thought. Blah. Still, I like the stripes.
I can't wait to wear this all winter long! I've worn it once so far and it is snuggly.
Yarns: Rowan Purelife Wool in Welsh Black (brown) and Steel Suffolk (grey), accented with Rowan chunky Scottish tweed (rose). Knit for Potions class, September '09: a warm up potion.
Two completed items in one week!! Amazing. This is a Not-So-Elizabethtown Hat in Three Irish Girls Galenas, Cinnamon Spice colorway.
The pattern is great - super easy. What slowed me down was that fourth round of cables. I ended up using the cabling without a needle method, except, um, I used a needle. ;) Instead of sliding two stitches to a needle, holding to the back, knitting the third stitch, knitting the two from the cable needle and then purling the last stitch, I slipped two stitches to the other needle, slid the third needle to another needle that I held in front, slipped the two back and then slipped the one back, knit the three and then purled the last. The slipping and knitting off just one needle did speed things up and made it a lot less fiddly.
I think it looks cute on. It matches my winter coat exactly, which is nearly impossible.
I goofed at the end, though. I shouldn't have done an extra decrease row, which I think caused some of the puckering, and I got carried away and bound off instead of running yarn through the stitches and scrunching them together. It doesn't look bad, though, and has a bit of a star effect. I don't mind it.
To complete my winter set, next will be a keyhole scarf in grey, brown and pink stripes to complement the reds, and possibly mittens in the above colors with perhaps some of the leftover red. We'll see.
I started this Sunday Market Shawl this past spring, with Wexford Silk Merino from Three Irish Girls, in I'm Just A Girl.
I was at Torchsong in June. I paid for priority seating, along with the caberet. Sadly, John Barrowman broke his ankle and couldn't attend. Instead, he did a two way video link so he could do Q&As and still see us from his office in Wales and we could see him on a big screen.
I brought my knitting with me since I was sitting alone and I like having something to concentrate on while I listen. My assigned seat was on the far end of the row, just behind the microphone where con attendees went to ask the Torchwood actors questions and such.
John came on, and was chatty and friendly and having a great time talking with the people lined up next to me asking him questions. Then, about ten minutes in, he stopped the next person and said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, I have to ask. Is that lady knitting?! What are you making, honey?" I froze, looked up at the giant screen of him leaning towards the camera, squinting at me. I finally was able to tell him that it was a shawl, and held it up. "That looks great!" he said. "See, I am paying attention!"
Yes, he was, and he made my day, weekend, month, summer! I never would have felt comfortable getting in line, but I didn't have to - he initiated the interaction! Thanks, John. :)
So, this was renamed from Summer Nights Shawl to The Oh Holy Hell John Barrowman Noticed Me And Asked Me About My Project Shawl. ;)
It was pretty simple - first row, k2 yo all the way across, then knit straight stockinette. Last row, drop the yos and unravel them down to create the ladders. It jumped from about 44x8 to 66x12 after that - seriously impressive.
I did have an hour of fear when, trying to bind off as loosely as possible per the directions, my stitches came off the needle and I couldn't tell which were accidentally dropped and which were purposely so! It was awful...an hour of frantically catching them all and figuring out which belonged where and how to pick them up from several rows down, etc. I did manage it, though, although something got twisted in the bind off row, creating my only error of the piece. (Of course something had to happen - my knitting is always imperfectly perfect!) The unraveling itself was a blast. It took about another hour, and the immediate change of dense, thick stockinette to loose, drapey, big stitches was amazing. See?
I wore it the day after I finished (knit in Pleasant Prairie during a Doctor Who marathon with Meg) to the Bristol Renaissance Faire, as pictured. It was a delight - I could wear it as a shawl, scarf, hood or shrug to stay warm. However, as you can see, I had a problem that many others encountered with this pattern - half of it has stayed laddered (the bind off edge, where I started dropping) and the other half lost the ladders and just looks like loose stockinette. Hmm. A knitty friend from work recommended blocking it and picking apart the ladders, as they do still exist in there. I'm worried what that will do to the perfect length of this, though. Must decide what to do about it, if anything.
The yarn is a silk/wool blend, in shades of blue and purple. It's soft and gorgeous and lovely. Definitely recommended.
ARGH. ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH.
Argh. Houston, we have a problem. Except, no - a problem is manageable. This is a sea of problems and I don't know where to begin fixing them.
The first one was a nightmare - I must have been very distracted, because I'd realize that I had pulled a needle out of its stitches several times. I also lost the round marker a few times. I also dropped a few stitches and while I did successfully pull them back up (first dropped stitches ever), it resulted in a bumpy messy row.
Then came the second one. Everything was going good, everything was going grand, I counted the rows above the thumb on the first one (9) and then matched it on the second and bound off.
Yeah.
Why do nine rows not match? Why do the 13 of the thumb gusset not seem to match? Why did the bind off roll on the second one but not the first? How did the gusset on the first end up in the palm and not the thumb, like the second? (Yeah, totally the missing marker, but why didn't I make myself believe my thoughts that it didn't look right?)
Do I rip out the second bind off and extend it? Do I rip out the first one down to its cuff and try again? Do I rip off the bind off and pull it down to match the second one's length instead? ARGH! My simple fast not-even-a-pattern has turned into the worst project ever. And these were going to be *useful* for God's sake - it's damned cold in my office at work. SIGH.
The yarn is nice, though - Springvale merino from Three Irish Girls in the January yarn club color Benevolent. It's sproingy and soft and feels absolutely gorgeous. A little splitty at first with the bamboo dpns, but easily managed.
I've been able to give away some knitty gifts lately, which was really fun.
The latest was this mitten set. I love these mittens - the yarn, the colorway, they are lovely and warm. But they did not fit me or match my winter coat. Luckily, my co-worker Heather saw them, liked them, and they matched her coat. I brought them in and success! They fit as well. So now she has a lovely warm pair of mittens and I feel all warm and happy that someone actually wanted my knitting. Win-win!
I also gave some very tiny pieces away at Christmas. I knit up this little pouch to hold a cute Germany ornament for a themed ornament exchange. I was dear Grossmama mailing a little gift to Tib Muller, from the Betsy-Tacy books. *g*
I sewed a little bag crammed tight with apple cinnamon potpourri and stuffed it and pillow fluff into the purple squares. Basic, but pretty and I hope she liked it!
I also had a knitting-related gift set for Kristine and another for Jennie. I took clear empty ornament balls, wound some mini skeins of yarn and stuffed them, garland and knit ornaments inside. They came out so cool and I think many others will receive an ornament next year, as well!
Look what I made! I cast on last night when Jennie and I popped in a first season episode of Stargate Atlantis and cast off tonight just after another first season episode of Stargate Atlantis. *g* Probably about five hours of knitting, total, plus extra finishing time.
This is a Calorimetry, in a soft-spun corriedale wool. The colorway is Ianto, dyed by YummyYarn of Etsy, and based on Ianto's excellent suits. The button is sparkly and from a cheap pack at JoAnns.
I modified the pattern in several ways - I used a US7 needle instead of US8, cast on 96 stitches instead of 120 and did 8 repeats of row 5 and 10 repeats of row 7, instead of 15 and 17 respectively. Too many people had complained that the pattern turned out huge, and they were right. I may have done an extra set of repeats, but the 96 was absolutely perfect and the width is still fine. It doesn't smoosh my bangs and it does cover my ears, which were the two things I wanted from this.
And, well, look. I'm damn cute in it. ;)
I have two more skeins of this on the way, and they shall be matching De-Lovely fingerless mitts. This will be a classic set that Ianto would certainly approve of!
A scarf for my mother! It's about twice this length now and going much more smoothly. It's a drop stitch scarf - k1, yo, k1, yo 2, k1, yo 3, k1, yo 2, k1, yo and then knit the knits and drop the yos. Easy technically, although getting the dropped yos to look smooth took practice. (ie, they are so not smooth here, although the last few unphotographed rows are!) I think it's looking neat, though, and it's going fairly fast.
My friends Rory, Amy and Erin came over last week to help me decorate the Christmas tree and make cookies. These are Alton Brown's sugar cookies and everyone at home and work agreed that they are the best sugar cookies ever. They aren't too sweet and are just delicious!
So see, I am still being (somewhat) crafty. ;)
I actually have been knitting since the last post. I figured out my error on the slipper I was ripping out and finished the pair. They are warm and cozy to wear. I've also got about half of a Chinese Wave dishcloth done, but I think it's on hiatus for the moment - it's no longer a gift and the pattern is annoying. I really need to find a non-slip stitch pattern to do - I've overdosed on them! I also knit a wee little Christmas gift that I hope will be enjoyed despite its simplicity.
I had and have all these grand knitting plans, but that's really all that's been done. I've been stressed with school and turning to my computer to relax instead of knitting. Now that I'm on winter vacation for the next six weeks, I hope to get more things made.
At the top of the list: an Ice Queen cowl in dark purple with sparkles for me, and a drop stitch scarf in brown and dark red for mom.
Oy. All this time, I've been afraid to knit socks not just because of small yarn and needles, but the knowledge that I would inevitably lose interest in knitting an identical match to the first sock. So true - even with a quick knit like mittens, I can't get myself going on #2!
Finally, after weeks of not knitting because I was so stuck on that dratted second mitten, I gave in and started a new project. Ridiculously Easy Mary Jane Slippers. They were, in fact, ridiculously easy. And, also, too big. I knew it when I was knitting, too, but convinced myself otherwise until trying it on at the end. So I started the next one, casting on 20 stitches instead of the noted 30. This is the result and I love it. Comfy and soft. Three Irish Girls Galenas Chunky, Stash Menagerie October club yarn in Tolkien. I like the color, but it's too muted for me to really love it.
But you only see one here. Sigh. That's because I went to rip out the first one and ran into a problem. I had slipped the first stitch on each row to have a nice edge around and now I can't rip it out!!! Things tangle, rows get overanxious and unravel before I get to them, and I have to keep feeding the unwound yarn through the slipped stitches which is a pain in the neck. But I only have just enough yarn in the skein to make a pair, so I NEED to frog it! But I just can't bring myself to make myself yet - even in the 30 minutes I tried that first night, there was hollering and yarn throwing.
So now I'm stuck again. LOL
Three Irish Girls Peregrine Merino in Siofra.
I love it and am annoyed with it by turns. The colors are gorgeous and pooled perfectly and, the pattern is good. But I picked it because none of the finished projects on Ravelry had pointy tops and what does mine have? Pointy tops! Argh. I tried to fix it, and while it did solve a lot of aesthetic issues, the point never went away.
Also, it's much too large. I do have small hands, I guess. The thumb is a great length, but the rest of it - there's about half an inch at the top, and I can actually bend my fingers inside it without the mitten moving. Oops.
But hey, that thumb is gorgeous. Look at the perfect striping!
