Did you too get an email from Knit Picks on July 1 that advertised a "Baltic Lace Kit"? A beautiful, beautiful lace shawl with all the whistles and bells but at a super duper low price? I fell in love instantaneously, but since I tend to brood over potential purchases for at least a week before making them (call it cost-benefit analysis: I first need to silently contemplate what's already in the stash and, if item still has my attention and wants to be purchased, I mull over the idea loudly in the presence of the Hubs, and, if there's no veto from that end, I sleep over the whole issue for a couple of nights, and, if I still remember that there's something I want, I go ahead and make the purchase), the Baltic Lace Kit had disappeared out of my cart when I went to Knit Picks today to hit the BUY button. Where once there was a Baltic Lace Kit (like, one week ago), none was today.
So I talked to Jasmine at Customer Service, and she said the kit was so incredibly popular it sold out within days. Zut alors !
I can't even show you a picture of the beauty: the link in aforementioned email no longer works.
(And this after yesterday's disappointment that Espania kicked some German booty and made it into the World Cup final, whereas Jogi's boys will play for third place only. Buäääh!!!)
Oh--and have I mentioned it's 103 degrees (39.5 C) in update New York and our summer sublet is not air-conditioned and even the library--usually an ice-box--is beginning to get hot?
*headdesk*
Showing posts with label Trouble. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trouble. Show all posts
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Olympic Progress
The plan to bring socks along to Florida for relaxed vacation knitting crashed the moment I realized that knitting with five DPNs and a cable needle freaks me out. The socks--I'm still working on the first one and am stuck somewhere between cuff and heel--had to stay behind; instead I brought the Olympic sweater. Many, many hours of unexpected air travel later (very long story. Suffice to say I made surprise stops in Indianapolis, Detroit, and Baltimore. I had booked non-stop flights, by the way):
I'm almost done! And if it weren't for not-so-wonderful Lang Yarns instructions I would have been done long before hitting Baltimore on my so-called non-stop flight home (can you tell I'm not quite over the flight complications?).
In theory this sweater is a piece o' cake. However, I had to redo the sleeves and am looking at doing the left sleeve again. My beef with the instructions? Well, if it reads "increase every 6th row," I don't increase for the first five rows, then work an increase, and then repeat. Once I finished the first sleeve I realized that those first five rows that I didn't increase had added an unwanted three centimeters to the piece, and that clearly the instructions should have read: "increase every 6th row, starting with an increase row." (This wouldn't have been a problem had it not been for yarn shortage: I didn't mind extra-long sleeve, but I was running out of yarn rapidly, and every yard counted). The other obstacle, as I learned once I had finished both sleeves, was the position of a different set of increases:
The instructions ask for two increases in every row at one side of the sleeve, which results in what you can see on the right: a sleeve with a triangle sticking out. This looked odd to me, but I made a second matching sleeve regardless, thinking that this might be some cool-looking futuristic elbow cap. I figured I better finish the whole sweater to see what it looks like when everything comes together. Well, the sleeve design didn't come together at all, and I redid the sleeve increases by increasing every 3rd (then 4th and 5th) stitch over three rows, with plain rows in between. The result is on the left. When worn, it looks much better this way.
Here's my last complaint: the instructions don't state yarn requirements correctly. Relying on the instructions I got eleven balls of Piora (the fuzzy stuff) and four of the merino DK weight yarn (for the cuffs). I ran out of Piora completely before finishing the cowl, which is four centimeters short. The bottom of the sweater is worse: it's seven centimeters short! The latter problem is easy to fix, since fortunately I used only 40% of the merino and have more than two balls left. I'm using the merino to add an edge to the sweater, and no one will be able to tell the difference. I'm hoping that those extra balls of merino will knit up to seven centimeters of ribbing and thus make up for the missing Piora. But isn't this irritating: to run out of one yarn but have a lot extra of the other?
Anyway. I can see the finish line. I just need to complete the ribbing, redo the sleeve, weave in all the ends--and show you a photo of the FO!
In a later post I'll share some Florida photos... for now I'll leave you with just one:
I'm almost done! And if it weren't for not-so-wonderful Lang Yarns instructions I would have been done long before hitting Baltimore on my so-called non-stop flight home (can you tell I'm not quite over the flight complications?).
In theory this sweater is a piece o' cake. However, I had to redo the sleeves and am looking at doing the left sleeve again. My beef with the instructions? Well, if it reads "increase every 6th row," I don't increase for the first five rows, then work an increase, and then repeat. Once I finished the first sleeve I realized that those first five rows that I didn't increase had added an unwanted three centimeters to the piece, and that clearly the instructions should have read: "increase every 6th row, starting with an increase row." (This wouldn't have been a problem had it not been for yarn shortage: I didn't mind extra-long sleeve, but I was running out of yarn rapidly, and every yard counted). The other obstacle, as I learned once I had finished both sleeves, was the position of a different set of increases:
The instructions ask for two increases in every row at one side of the sleeve, which results in what you can see on the right: a sleeve with a triangle sticking out. This looked odd to me, but I made a second matching sleeve regardless, thinking that this might be some cool-looking futuristic elbow cap. I figured I better finish the whole sweater to see what it looks like when everything comes together. Well, the sleeve design didn't come together at all, and I redid the sleeve increases by increasing every 3rd (then 4th and 5th) stitch over three rows, with plain rows in between. The result is on the left. When worn, it looks much better this way.
Here's my last complaint: the instructions don't state yarn requirements correctly. Relying on the instructions I got eleven balls of Piora (the fuzzy stuff) and four of the merino DK weight yarn (for the cuffs). I ran out of Piora completely before finishing the cowl, which is four centimeters short. The bottom of the sweater is worse: it's seven centimeters short! The latter problem is easy to fix, since fortunately I used only 40% of the merino and have more than two balls left. I'm using the merino to add an edge to the sweater, and no one will be able to tell the difference. I'm hoping that those extra balls of merino will knit up to seven centimeters of ribbing and thus make up for the missing Piora. But isn't this irritating: to run out of one yarn but have a lot extra of the other?
Anyway. I can see the finish line. I just need to complete the ribbing, redo the sleeve, weave in all the ends--and show you a photo of the FO!
In a later post I'll share some Florida photos... for now I'll leave you with just one:
Friday, November 20, 2009
Within 24 Hours...
When I woke up to this, I predicted the day to be pretty crappy overall:
All morning it rained, and rained, and then it rained some more. Alas, after I completed chores that corresponded to the weather and my general meh-feeling (such as cleaning, doing laundry, paying bills), the sun came out, the temperature rose, and the Hubs and I decided to go for a looooong three-hour walk. The destination: my LYS (via the Hubs' hair salon, our fave bookstore, and Trader Joe's: to get my man a better haircut, find some good holiday reads, and replenish our wine [and butter] supply). Why the LYS? I was about to run out of purple Cascade 220, and since I'd like to finish my Fiddlehead hat before the first snowstorm (predicted for early December), I needed more. On the way to the LYS we ran into this prettiness:
Once I was at the LYS I confessed (first to myself, then to the staff) how much I really hated the socks I was knitting for my dad. How could I have ever thought that green, blue, and yellow would make an appealing sock color combination? In addition to color ugliness, I also realized that I had made some serious mistakes and accidentally picked up stitches at the turning point between needles. I often get my yarn twisted, but never before had I actually made new stitches that, at their base, create terrible holes. Suddenly I saw that Dad's sock had three such holes:
So, right then and there I decided to frog and start over again, this time with yummy Classic Elite Alpaca Sox:
On the way home we walked by this sign, advertising the services of the new emergency room of our local hospital:
Goodness! I hope that, once I have a problem that is serious enough to deserve ER treatment, I'll get medical attention within 24 hours! I'd better stay healthy...
All morning it rained, and rained, and then it rained some more. Alas, after I completed chores that corresponded to the weather and my general meh-feeling (such as cleaning, doing laundry, paying bills), the sun came out, the temperature rose, and the Hubs and I decided to go for a looooong three-hour walk. The destination: my LYS (via the Hubs' hair salon, our fave bookstore, and Trader Joe's: to get my man a better haircut, find some good holiday reads, and replenish our wine [and butter] supply). Why the LYS? I was about to run out of purple Cascade 220, and since I'd like to finish my Fiddlehead hat before the first snowstorm (predicted for early December), I needed more. On the way to the LYS we ran into this prettiness:
Once I was at the LYS I confessed (first to myself, then to the staff) how much I really hated the socks I was knitting for my dad. How could I have ever thought that green, blue, and yellow would make an appealing sock color combination? In addition to color ugliness, I also realized that I had made some serious mistakes and accidentally picked up stitches at the turning point between needles. I often get my yarn twisted, but never before had I actually made new stitches that, at their base, create terrible holes. Suddenly I saw that Dad's sock had three such holes:
So, right then and there I decided to frog and start over again, this time with yummy Classic Elite Alpaca Sox:
On the way home we walked by this sign, advertising the services of the new emergency room of our local hospital:
Goodness! I hope that, once I have a problem that is serious enough to deserve ER treatment, I'll get medical attention within 24 hours! I'd better stay healthy...
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Trapezoid
The Hubs is knocked out; we think he's coming down with the flu (oink oink? No, not that flu, just the regular kind). So, while he's upstairs either sneezing or snoozing, I'm fiddling downstairs trying to get the apartment in shape for our guests (read: I'm cleaning).
But here's a problem, and I need a bit of input trying to solve it.
Heron is--drum roll--sewn together and has a left and a right button band. It's still missing lower arms and The Problematic Collar. The instructions for the latter read: CO, then increase at the beginning of each row for 16 rows, then knit in pattern until the collar is three inches wide. And then sew the collar to the cardigan.
After pondering for a minute to simply pick up stitches and knit a rectangular collar without increases, I decided to stick with the instructions. Having worked increases over just 12 rows (not 16), my collar already measures three inches and looks like this:
What puzzles me is not the width issue but how to sew the collar to the neckline. The collar obviously has the shape of a trapezoid (or trapezium, British English; or trapeze, Melanie English), and I'm wondering exactly which edge to sew to the neckline: the short CO edge with the two "wings" or the long BO edge. (???) The picture in the pattern is of no help whatsoever, since here the collar looks like a rectangle and not a trapezoid:
What to do? If I can't figure this one out, I'll revert to Plan A and pick up stitches and knit my own version...
This is what Heron looks like now:
I wish I had time to finish it today... but no. Cleaning comes first. Knitting will have to wait (I might have time to get three buttons, though).
Happy Halloween!
But here's a problem, and I need a bit of input trying to solve it.
Heron is--drum roll--sewn together and has a left and a right button band. It's still missing lower arms and The Problematic Collar. The instructions for the latter read: CO, then increase at the beginning of each row for 16 rows, then knit in pattern until the collar is three inches wide. And then sew the collar to the cardigan.
After pondering for a minute to simply pick up stitches and knit a rectangular collar without increases, I decided to stick with the instructions. Having worked increases over just 12 rows (not 16), my collar already measures three inches and looks like this:
What puzzles me is not the width issue but how to sew the collar to the neckline. The collar obviously has the shape of a trapezoid (or trapezium, British English; or trapeze, Melanie English), and I'm wondering exactly which edge to sew to the neckline: the short CO edge with the two "wings" or the long BO edge. (???) The picture in the pattern is of no help whatsoever, since here the collar looks like a rectangle and not a trapezoid:
What to do? If I can't figure this one out, I'll revert to Plan A and pick up stitches and knit my own version...
This is what Heron looks like now:
I wish I had time to finish it today... but no. Cleaning comes first. Knitting will have to wait (I might have time to get three buttons, though).
Happy Halloween!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
I Need to Borrow a Baby Arm
I've been invited to go to a baby shower, and what better gift than a hand-knit itty-bitty baby-something? Quick to make, cute to look at, something new to try. All good reasons to dive into searching for baby patterns. After a one-hour lunch break I declared f.pea's bumpy cardigan and hat set to be the winning design. (Ironically, it was this set that got me thinking about knitting for babies in the first place; I could have easily done something more productive during that hour than searching Ravelry.) The pattern calls for Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Dyed Cotton, and before going online to order the yarn over the internet I checked with my LYS to see if they had this particular yarn in stock (I like the idea of doing stuff locally and keeping the dollar in the community, especially when it comes to yarn stores). And they did!! Or so I was told. As it turned out the next day, the store had Dyed Cotton, but not skinny Dyed Cotton. I was presented with Rowan's Cotton Glace as a perfect substitute, and once I did the comparisons in my head and it all seemed to add up nicely (weight, needle size, gauge), I went for it. I picked a lovely mauve taupe and a very nice beige (I think the colors were called damson and ochre): the gender of the little one isn't known, and I thought mauvish goes for boys and girls alike. The store lady thought differently and suggested a bright green as the perfect gender-neutral color, but since I dislike neon colors for babies I didn't go for it. However, now I had serious doubts about my color choice, and eventually I abandoned mauve/beige and went with gray and off-white, which, although a bit lame, seemed about as gender-neutral as it gets.
(My sixth sense--or whatever that nagging little voice in my head is--told me at this point to just drop the Glace, go home, and order Skinny Dyed Cotton in my preferred colors. I should listen to this voice occasionally.)
Home I went. And swatched to check for gauge. It was a bit off with #5 needles, so I went for #4 needles, which got me good gauge in stockinette stitch. (There was no gauge mentioned for the bumpy pattern, just stockinette stitch.) And so I started knitting!
And I knit and knit and knit, and I finished the neckline/upper body part, and then I put the sleeve stitches on a holder, and knit and knit and knit, and then I began wondering if those armholes weren't a bit small. All the babies I know (not that many) have fat arms. Cute arms. Cute fat baby arms. So I started worrying a bit: will those sleeves, judged by the armholes, really accommodate baby arms? Hubs and my knitting pal calmed me down: the expecting mom is little, her husband, too, is skinny and rather short, and therefore the baby will be little too.
So I knit on. I finished the body. I thought to myself, those armholes look really small, but they look this small because they are on a stitch holder. Once I finished the arms, the armholes will be bigger (???). So I finished one arm. Still it looked small. And I thought to myself, once I finished the button band, the armholes will be bigger (?????). And so I knit the button band. Despite silent prayers to the knitting gods the armholes did not magically grow. They were still very small.
And small they still are! Look:
They must be too small, right? How am I able to tell if I don't have a baby arm at my disposal? I tried the cardi on my very old baby doll that I finally found after I had been searching for it all morning:
Yes, it fits her, but will it fit a real baby? That doll is a small, mal-nourished Communist baby doll manufactured in the--then--Soviet Union. How does it compare to a well-fed, much loved, longingly anticipated, chubby little American baby? (If you have one of those around your house, could you please measure the arms? Thank you.)
Argh. I really have my doubts. I think what happened is that the yarn substitution didn't work: I should have done the bumpy pattern with #5 needles and the stockinette stitch part with #4's. I'm running out of time to redo it. I think I have to abandon this project for now and contribute to the cash pot my department put together for the baby shower. I'm so unhappy about this! The Hubs says I should just complete the cardigan and give it to the mommy-to-be and get over it, but what if the cardi won't fit the baby? I would feel so awful about it...
I don't want to finish and then gift it. Especially since I didn't put all that much TLC into the knitting once I finished the arm and it still looked too small. At that point I had serious doubts and began to work sloppily. My button band looks entirely wacko, mainly because I still haven't figured out what the best way is to pick up stitches.
(Serious questions, knitters out there: when picking up selvedge stitches, do you go through both loops, the one closer to you, or the one in the back? I went for the loops in the back, which left me with giant holes in the front it seems. Every picked-up stitch could serve as button hole on this cardi! Ugh.)
*Sigh*
In other news:
I received my yarn swift and ball winder in the mail last night. I played with the new toys this morning, and I love them! OMG--I love being able to wind yarn into balls!
My MIL got the swift and winder for me, and she sent them my way before she herself embarked on a trip to France (!!!) to paint at the Côte d'Azur (!!!). She left this morning... bon voyage ! (This reminds me: I picked up Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse last night and instantly loved it. I think I'm a bit too old to be this impressed by it, but regardless, I couldn't put it down but finished it in one sitting.)
I'd be green with envy 'bout J's trip to France, except I went to the live recording of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me, one of my two favorite NPR shows. (The other one being, of course, This American Life), and that was quite awesome too. The last time I went Barney Frank was the guest. This time, it was Ashley Judd. Boy, do I like Frank better than Judd! Here some mediocre iPhone pics of the Wang Theater, the recording site:
At the time of the recording Barack Obama hadn't yet won the Nobel Peace Prize (Kudos!), but if you listened to today's broadcast you know that Peter Sagal mentioned this little fact several times. Hmmmmm... I wonder how that happened....
Night now!
(My sixth sense--or whatever that nagging little voice in my head is--told me at this point to just drop the Glace, go home, and order Skinny Dyed Cotton in my preferred colors. I should listen to this voice occasionally.)
Home I went. And swatched to check for gauge. It was a bit off with #5 needles, so I went for #4 needles, which got me good gauge in stockinette stitch. (There was no gauge mentioned for the bumpy pattern, just stockinette stitch.) And so I started knitting!
And I knit and knit and knit, and I finished the neckline/upper body part, and then I put the sleeve stitches on a holder, and knit and knit and knit, and then I began wondering if those armholes weren't a bit small. All the babies I know (not that many) have fat arms. Cute arms. Cute fat baby arms. So I started worrying a bit: will those sleeves, judged by the armholes, really accommodate baby arms? Hubs and my knitting pal calmed me down: the expecting mom is little, her husband, too, is skinny and rather short, and therefore the baby will be little too.
So I knit on. I finished the body. I thought to myself, those armholes look really small, but they look this small because they are on a stitch holder. Once I finished the arms, the armholes will be bigger (???). So I finished one arm. Still it looked small. And I thought to myself, once I finished the button band, the armholes will be bigger (?????). And so I knit the button band. Despite silent prayers to the knitting gods the armholes did not magically grow. They were still very small.
And small they still are! Look:
They must be too small, right? How am I able to tell if I don't have a baby arm at my disposal? I tried the cardi on my very old baby doll that I finally found after I had been searching for it all morning:
Yes, it fits her, but will it fit a real baby? That doll is a small, mal-nourished Communist baby doll manufactured in the--then--Soviet Union. How does it compare to a well-fed, much loved, longingly anticipated, chubby little American baby? (If you have one of those around your house, could you please measure the arms? Thank you.)
Argh. I really have my doubts. I think what happened is that the yarn substitution didn't work: I should have done the bumpy pattern with #5 needles and the stockinette stitch part with #4's. I'm running out of time to redo it. I think I have to abandon this project for now and contribute to the cash pot my department put together for the baby shower. I'm so unhappy about this! The Hubs says I should just complete the cardigan and give it to the mommy-to-be and get over it, but what if the cardi won't fit the baby? I would feel so awful about it...
I don't want to finish and then gift it. Especially since I didn't put all that much TLC into the knitting once I finished the arm and it still looked too small. At that point I had serious doubts and began to work sloppily. My button band looks entirely wacko, mainly because I still haven't figured out what the best way is to pick up stitches.
(Serious questions, knitters out there: when picking up selvedge stitches, do you go through both loops, the one closer to you, or the one in the back? I went for the loops in the back, which left me with giant holes in the front it seems. Every picked-up stitch could serve as button hole on this cardi! Ugh.)
*Sigh*
In other news:
I received my yarn swift and ball winder in the mail last night. I played with the new toys this morning, and I love them! OMG--I love being able to wind yarn into balls!
My MIL got the swift and winder for me, and she sent them my way before she herself embarked on a trip to France (!!!) to paint at the Côte d'Azur (!!!). She left this morning... bon voyage ! (This reminds me: I picked up Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse last night and instantly loved it. I think I'm a bit too old to be this impressed by it, but regardless, I couldn't put it down but finished it in one sitting.)
I'd be green with envy 'bout J's trip to France, except I went to the live recording of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me, one of my two favorite NPR shows. (The other one being, of course, This American Life), and that was quite awesome too. The last time I went Barney Frank was the guest. This time, it was Ashley Judd. Boy, do I like Frank better than Judd! Here some mediocre iPhone pics of the Wang Theater, the recording site:
At the time of the recording Barack Obama hadn't yet won the Nobel Peace Prize (Kudos!), but if you listened to today's broadcast you know that Peter Sagal mentioned this little fact several times. Hmmmmm... I wonder how that happened....
Night now!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Antennae!
Howdy! How was your weekend? I made my Hubs go gaga; what did you do?
Well, Hubs says I didn't actually push him over the edge, but surely I came close. This is what happened:
For the mystery socks I had wound one skein ofyellow golden cashmere heaven, and to knit the socks two at a time I needed both ends of the yarn. This of course is a piece o' cake if you use a yarn swift and a ball winder. Not so if you wind by hand using the back of a chair, since you "lose" the inside end to the yarn you wind around it. So I wound the yarn around a toilet paper roll tube to maintain access to the inside end. So far quite clever, yes? As you can image, my ball of yarn looked fairly... well... un-pretty. But it served its purpose: I had two ends of yarn to work with, to knit two individual socks.
Then something strange happened last Saturday, and I refuse to recall what it was exactly. But somehow I ended up pulling a large part of the inside body out of the ball of yarn. I accidentally pulled a lot of the inside out! This left me with a huge mess of tangled yarn. I pulled and pushed and untangled and moved around and pulled some more, and I did all of those things for about an hour, but I just couldn't untangle the mess. So I got the scissors, thinking I must cut the yarn near the sock end, and again near the ball end, throw away the middle and tie together the two loose ends.
When Hubs saw me with the scissors, he did this manly thing where he felt challenged to save the world, one strand of yarn at a time. So he sat down and untangled the yarn. And he did so for a long, looooooog time. No scissors ever touched that yarn.
In the meantime I sat in the other room, undoing my shiny "Luxus" sweater to take care of the mess I had created by not watching my gauge. Something I hadn't quite considered: the yarn's a mohair blend. Ripping was painful and took a lot, a lot!, of time.
With all of Saturday's yarn frustration, I treated us to key lime bars on Sunday. They were yum. I made the crust using animals crackers.
And since I was feeling the yellow thing, I knit up a bit of the LaLana Wools Streakers! I got in Taos last spring (mostly white, with a bit of yellow here and there), and I came up with this:
The yellow turned especially pretty once I was ready to cast off, so I crocheted some antennae on top of it:
Unbelievable how quick a knit a hat is! This is my first hat, and I didn't even have a pattern to follow. (Not that this is an ingenious pattern, but I'm pretty happy that I got the measurements right the first time.)
Winter, Where Art Thou?*
*I take that back. Please, winter, stay away for a while, will ya? Send brother autumn first, pretty please.
Well, Hubs says I didn't actually push him over the edge, but surely I came close. This is what happened:
For the mystery socks I had wound one skein of
Then something strange happened last Saturday, and I refuse to recall what it was exactly. But somehow I ended up pulling a large part of the inside body out of the ball of yarn. I accidentally pulled a lot of the inside out! This left me with a huge mess of tangled yarn. I pulled and pushed and untangled and moved around and pulled some more, and I did all of those things for about an hour, but I just couldn't untangle the mess. So I got the scissors, thinking I must cut the yarn near the sock end, and again near the ball end, throw away the middle and tie together the two loose ends.
When Hubs saw me with the scissors, he did this manly thing where he felt challenged to save the world, one strand of yarn at a time. So he sat down and untangled the yarn. And he did so for a long, looooooog time. No scissors ever touched that yarn.
In the meantime I sat in the other room, undoing my shiny "Luxus" sweater to take care of the mess I had created by not watching my gauge. Something I hadn't quite considered: the yarn's a mohair blend. Ripping was painful and took a lot, a lot!, of time.
With all of Saturday's yarn frustration, I treated us to key lime bars on Sunday. They were yum. I made the crust using animals crackers.
And since I was feeling the yellow thing, I knit up a bit of the LaLana Wools Streakers! I got in Taos last spring (mostly white, with a bit of yellow here and there), and I came up with this:
The yellow turned especially pretty once I was ready to cast off, so I crocheted some antennae on top of it:
Unbelievable how quick a knit a hat is! This is my first hat, and I didn't even have a pattern to follow. (Not that this is an ingenious pattern, but I'm pretty happy that I got the measurements right the first time.)
Winter, Where Art Thou?*
*I take that back. Please, winter, stay away for a while, will ya? Send brother autumn first, pretty please.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Luxus Touch
That's the name of the sweater I'm knitting; the description mentions golden winter shine. I'm all for it!
(Yes, you see right: that's a copy of the pattern, handed over by the owner of the Berlin LYS where my mom bought this yarn for me. Apparently, Germans don't take the copyright thing quite so seriously. I offered to buy the pattern book, but the store had run out of it. The owner argued that copying the pattern for free ought to be in the interest of the yarn manufacturer and pattern designer, since it helps with yarn sales. I wouldn't have asked to photocopy patterns, but I took the copy once it was offered.)
I love the yarn (Lana Grossa Chiara), and I love the pattern, and I love knitting the pattern with the yarn. Sounds like a match made in heaven, doesn't it?
So, what went wrong?
Well, I also love watching TV while knitting in the evening. Once Netflix came out with the long awaited second season of Mad Men, my attention was torn between watching my gauge and watching Joanie, Betty, and Peggy. Somehow the girls won. My gauge went all over the place. It shows:
Somewhere in the middle. what started to be tight and pretty turned loose and ugly. I told myself, it's just the back, no one will notice. Well, Monsieur noticed. And then he gave unsolicited advice, somewhere along the lines of needing to undo at least one third of the sweater to make it "look right."
*sigh*
(Yes, you see right: that's a copy of the pattern, handed over by the owner of the Berlin LYS where my mom bought this yarn for me. Apparently, Germans don't take the copyright thing quite so seriously. I offered to buy the pattern book, but the store had run out of it. The owner argued that copying the pattern for free ought to be in the interest of the yarn manufacturer and pattern designer, since it helps with yarn sales. I wouldn't have asked to photocopy patterns, but I took the copy once it was offered.)
I love the yarn (Lana Grossa Chiara), and I love the pattern, and I love knitting the pattern with the yarn. Sounds like a match made in heaven, doesn't it?
So, what went wrong?
Well, I also love watching TV while knitting in the evening. Once Netflix came out with the long awaited second season of Mad Men, my attention was torn between watching my gauge and watching Joanie, Betty, and Peggy. Somehow the girls won. My gauge went all over the place. It shows:
Somewhere in the middle. what started to be tight and pretty turned loose and ugly. I told myself, it's just the back, no one will notice. Well, Monsieur noticed. And then he gave unsolicited advice, somewhere along the lines of needing to undo at least one third of the sweater to make it "look right."
*sigh*
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Blues
I want to knit a scarf for Sylvie, the sister of Betty for whom I made a mohair scarf a while back. Sylvie likes the color blue, and while in Berlin, Hubs and I found an interesting blue cotton yarn that we thought Sylvie might like. I had a wave pattern in mind and started right away:
Hubs didn't like it, arguing that since Betty got mohair, her sister should get the same fuzziness (although while in the LYS, he liked the cotton... *sigh*). So we went out to buy another blue yarn, this time kid mohair, and I made this swatch:
Now it was me who didn't like the result (partly because it was TOO HOT to work with mohair), and I went back to experimenting with the cotton again. I thought: Orlane!
But somehow the shawl didn't live up to its big sister, my first Orlane, and I stopped after just a short while:
The texture just wasn't right. So, guess what: I pulled the mohair out again, trying different things, among them a basic leaf pattern:
The idea was to start with big needles, decrease them in size, and at the other end of the scarf increase again. So that I'd end up with a regular-width scarf with wide fluffy ends.
Well, I don't like my "design idea" anymore! For now I've abandoned the blue-scarf-for-Sylvie project, but only until I've found a good pattern. Any ideas for a mohair scarf or shawl, anyone? (Yes, I've searched Ravelry. Extensively. Obsessively. But I simply can't make up my mind when faced with hundreds of choices....)
*sigh*
Hubs didn't like it, arguing that since Betty got mohair, her sister should get the same fuzziness (although while in the LYS, he liked the cotton... *sigh*). So we went out to buy another blue yarn, this time kid mohair, and I made this swatch:
Now it was me who didn't like the result (partly because it was TOO HOT to work with mohair), and I went back to experimenting with the cotton again. I thought: Orlane!
But somehow the shawl didn't live up to its big sister, my first Orlane, and I stopped after just a short while:
The texture just wasn't right. So, guess what: I pulled the mohair out again, trying different things, among them a basic leaf pattern:
The idea was to start with big needles, decrease them in size, and at the other end of the scarf increase again. So that I'd end up with a regular-width scarf with wide fluffy ends.
Well, I don't like my "design idea" anymore! For now I've abandoned the blue-scarf-for-Sylvie project, but only until I've found a good pattern. Any ideas for a mohair scarf or shawl, anyone? (Yes, I've searched Ravelry. Extensively. Obsessively. But I simply can't make up my mind when faced with hundreds of choices....)
*sigh*
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Icarus Needs Mending
It should have been an occasion for joyous celebration. And for a while it was: I finished Icarus (sound the trumpets!). I finished the edging, I bound off, I wove in the ends, and then I took a couple of pictures before blocking it. This is how beautiful Icarus was, just a few hours ago:
Gorgeous, right? At least I thought so... I was thrilled... and a little bit pleased with myself... I had met the deadline...
Then I gave the shawl a good soak. In nice, lukewarm water. In soapy water. While Icarus was taking its bath, I covered the living room floor with three large towels. Then I blocked. The shawl grew. 52 inches long, and too wide to measure it with a 60-inch tape. It was beautiful, my Icarus:
But then I discovered this:
A HOLE! Because somewhere in chart three I HAD DROPPEDA STITCH THREE STITCHES.
::*?#!f*)a!!::
I realize I need to stay calm and look at this mess tomorrow, when the initial shock will have worn off, when Icarus will have dried, when there will be decent daylight. There's no point in losing my mind over this tonight. I need to take a deep breath; I will be able to fix it.
The question, though: HOW, exactly, DO I FIX THIS?
Gorgeous, right? At least I thought so... I was thrilled... and a little bit pleased with myself... I had met the deadline...
Then I gave the shawl a good soak. In nice, lukewarm water. In soapy water. While Icarus was taking its bath, I covered the living room floor with three large towels. Then I blocked. The shawl grew. 52 inches long, and too wide to measure it with a 60-inch tape. It was beautiful, my Icarus:
But then I discovered this:
A HOLE! Because somewhere in chart three I HAD DROPPED
::*?#!f*)a!!::
I realize I need to stay calm and look at this mess tomorrow, when the initial shock will have worn off, when Icarus will have dried, when there will be decent daylight. There's no point in losing my mind over this tonight. I need to take a deep breath; I will be able to fix it.
The question, though: HOW, exactly, DO I FIX THIS?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Massive Cardigan
Two nights ago I finished the cardigan. Trying it on before blocking took the pleasure out of blocking: I knew then and there the cardigan would not fit me. It's way, way, way too big! The bloggers were right about the arm holes, which are too large, and the poor fit of the open closure, which does funny things as soon as you move (see cmeknits' and cleverknits' blog entries. Those two blog posts freaked me out last week: maybe the cardigan is a classic case of self-fulfilling prophecy. I feared it wouldn't turn out right, and so it didn't.) This is really sad; the cardigan looks so good in the magazine and many Ravelry knitters turned out very nice results. I love the design. And it's my first big project (no pun intended). And the yarn's lovely. And... and... and...
I checked the gauge and measured myself before I began knitting; as a matter of fact, I was in my LYS as I measured, just to have someone help me to get it right. We agreed that I should knit the 43 1/4" size (42" bust plus positive ease, at least one inch). Looking at the sweater now, I should have knitted a smaller size. Both my mother and grandmother always knitted a size smaller than their regular dress size: is that a trick to keep in mind?
As means of damage control I will use a couple of hook-and-eye clasps to close the front (from the neck to the waist: all the way). I hope that will improve the fit. The yarn is very comfy, so if I really can't save the cardigan, I can still wear it at home, as a yummy house sweater.
(This is the cardigan in its unblocked state. I'm still waiting for it to dry to take additional pictures. Even in this unflattering picture the cardigan looks quite good compared to the "real deal"; as soon as I move in it, the front panels fall to the sides.)
*** *** *** ***
PS: A couple of days later and a couple of sizes bigger: here's the cardigan after I washed it (too bad I could not shrink-block it):
As soon as I don't hold the cardi together with my hands, it just falls off. :(
I checked the gauge and measured myself before I began knitting; as a matter of fact, I was in my LYS as I measured, just to have someone help me to get it right. We agreed that I should knit the 43 1/4" size (42" bust plus positive ease, at least one inch). Looking at the sweater now, I should have knitted a smaller size. Both my mother and grandmother always knitted a size smaller than their regular dress size: is that a trick to keep in mind?
As means of damage control I will use a couple of hook-and-eye clasps to close the front (from the neck to the waist: all the way). I hope that will improve the fit. The yarn is very comfy, so if I really can't save the cardigan, I can still wear it at home, as a yummy house sweater.
(This is the cardigan in its unblocked state. I'm still waiting for it to dry to take additional pictures. Even in this unflattering picture the cardigan looks quite good compared to the "real deal"; as soon as I move in it, the front panels fall to the sides.)
*** *** *** ***
PS: A couple of days later and a couple of sizes bigger: here's the cardigan after I washed it (too bad I could not shrink-block it):
As soon as I don't hold the cardi together with my hands, it just falls off. :(
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