Smart for Once

I am currently working on the German Herringbone Skirt in Custom Knits.

There have been a few sizing issues with the other projects I have made from this book (MGM, Tilney). Please note: these issues have not in anyway diminished my love for the book!

This time I was smart. I measured it to find out what length I was getting from each repeat of the pattern. Then I multiplied that measurement by the total number of repeats the pattern called for, and added the 4.5" of the yoke. It was going to be SHORTER than I wanted...so I fixed it AHEAD OF TIME!

I know. How unusual for me.

I ended up adding an additional pattern repeat between each of the decreases. This means I SHOULD get an appropriately modest length. I will even try it on before I start the yoke.

Now my only concern is running out of yarn!

Epic Fail

ARGH!!!!

I have been knitting happily along on the Tilney Sweater...in fact, I am this close to finishing. Or, at least, I was this close to finishing.

I knew going in that I needed to lengthen the sweater(I like my sweaters a little longer than normal), so I bought an extra skein of yarn. Then, just to doubly ensure that I had enough yarn for the length, I went ahead and finished the sleeves and neck ruffle before I did the body's lower hem ribbing. I figured I would try it on before I moved the body back over from the waste yarn, and see how much longer exactly I needed to make it.

I tried it on at Blondie's house the other night. Epic Fail.

The sweater is INCHES bigger around than I need it to be.

I have no idea why this is.

I actually did a gauge swatch this time...and I got gauge.

I even made it a smaller size so that it would have negative ease...just like Wendy Bernard said to do in the lovely, well-written text.

(I have a 39" actual bust measurement...she recommended having 2-3" negative ease...so I made the size for 37"...)

I am flummoxed.

I will clearly need to unravel the majority of the work. I think I will just unravel the WHOLE THING, and reuse the yarn for a sweater vest. The yarn, while the right gauge, is...sturdier?...than I would like. Wendy's version in the book is made from an alpaca/silk blend, and mine was 100% merino. I still really want to make Tilney. I love it. I adore it. It is the reason I bought the book. I just need to find a drapier yarn to make it from.

And clearly, I need to make a MUCH smaller size, and try it on FREQUENTLY.

I Need a Big Headed Friend!

I have been wanting to make myself another beret for a while. I made one for just about everyone I knew. I even had the yarn picked out...Misti Alpaca Suri & Silk in coral.

At first I intended to do my standard go-to beret pattern...from Suzan Misher's Knit Cafe book. Then I found a new pattern, a cool pattern, a very very me pattern...

It was free from SockPixie, and was based on the Elizabeth Zimmerman February Sweater...which I had made for myself.

Perfect! I thought. I dubbed it the Beret Pour Moi (beret for ME).I checked my gauge, I cast on, I knit. The beret seemed to be getting a bit big...but I kept double checking my gauge and measurements...they were correct, so surely it would work out. Granted, I had made a change (a ribbed band instead of i-cord), but not one that should have had great grevious impact on the finished product. I just figured that somehow working it on two circulars was making it appear larger than normal...like side mirrors on a car.

I finished it while I was in Florida, but was promptly sidetracked by the Knitting Olympics, and didn't get around to weaving in ends/trying it on till last weekend.


IT IS HUGE!!!

Beautiful, but huge.

I reexamined the pictures on SockPixie's blog. The one pictured is huge, or at least huge for how I wear my berets, but the artsy angle she photographed it at hid this from me.

So, now I either need to find a big headed friend willing to wear a bright orange beret, or resign myself to wearing it as a slightly poufy ski cap.

(BTW, I have cast on a second beret for myself...using my old and normal pattern and the black sugar cane yarn. I may get a wearable beret for myself yet!)

Wizardy Whiz!

Funny, I had been feeling bad about not giving Whiz enough blog attention...and this is his 3rd post in the past month or so!

For Christmas, Psych commissioned a scarf for Whiz. A Wizard scarf. Specifically a Harry Potter Gryffindor House Scarf for Whiz.

I have a knitting book called Charmed Knits in which every pattern is from/inspired by/based on the Harry Potter books and movies. In it, there is a pattern for a Gryffindor house scarf.

As usual though, I didn't like the pattern all that much. I thought the stripes were too wide, the scarf itself was too wide, and that the yarn called for would be itchy. So I changed it up. I substituted a different yarn, used a different needle size, cast on fewer stitches, and changed colors more frequently. In fact, the only thing that stayed the same was that it was striped, knit in the round, and had fringe.

The first problem I had was with the yarn. As mentioned in previous posts, this scarf DEVOURED yarn. It sucked it up like it was the black hole of knitting projects. For more information on the pain I suffered as a result, please refer to previous posts.

The second problem was that the pattern did not give a very accurate finished length, instead it told how many stripes to knit, and what the finished length would be (approximately) including the fringe. My scarf stripes were a different dimension, so when I had finished the completed number the scarf was still really short. Since Whiz is a kid, his neck is thinner than mine and he is shorter than I am. I had a hard time judging size based on myself. Solution: take the scarf to the library and try it on one of our volunteer's third grade sons! Success!

I delivered the scarf to Psych at the ornament exchange. (My normal delivery time/place is church, but there was no way to do that without Whiz seeing.) She loved it.

Christmas morning, bright and early, she texted me a picture of him proudly wearing the finished product!

A New Style?

I have been diligently working on the MDM sweater, my version of Wendy Bernard's Ingenue Sweater in the book Custom Knits. (This may surprise you since I haven't blogged about it ...silly me!)

There has only been one minor problem thus far...and it was my problem, not the pattern's problem. I forgot to figure on negative ease! I measured myself, and then made a sweater at that finished size, forgetting that you want your sweater slightly smaller than your actual measurements because it is KNIT and should STRETCH a little...so now my sweater is a little roomy. No biggie. (The book actually told me to figure negative ease...I just forgot to when I cast on! This is made more amusing by the fact that this is one of the few projects I have actually made a gauge swatch for...so I went to the trouble to swatch it, but then still figured my sizing wrong...so blonde.)

As of last night, I have the whole body finished and one sleeve. The other sleeve is hanging out on waste yarn waiting for me to pick up the stitches and get going...but I am developing second sleeve syndrome.

I have tried on the sweater. I love how it looks. I even love how it fits, roominess and all. But, with the weather still too warm to wear it, I am starting to lack motivation to finish the second sleeve. I can envision it finished, so my brain is trying to pretend it is. There are so many other projects that want me to knit them right now...

What if I cast the sleeve cap off and just had a single sleeved sweater? Would that be the end of the world? Maybe I could start a new style...

Or not.

Maybe I should stop blogging about the second sleeve and just go knit it.

Yeah. That's what I should do.

*Picking up needles...*

Why Yes...That Does Sound More Impressive

Brother and Sis-In-Law stopped by for a surprise visit on Sunday afternoon...and once again Brother said something amazing.

I was showing Sis-In-Law some of my yarn and patterns for current/future projects. One of these was for a shawl/vest thing knit out of lace weight. I showed Brother the yarn and told him that the garment took just shy of 1000 yards.

"Really...that's almost a mile!" (Actually...it was only about 5/8 of a mile, but close enough.)

"Really? I hadn't ever thought of that." I picked up the shawl I had just finished and told him that it had taken about 450 yards.

"Well, that's about a quarter of a mile then!"

Turns out that a mile is 1760 yards. Which I knew. I had just never connected yarn quantities with distance before.

Brother and I went through and converted some of my projects over into mileage. A sweater was a mile. A wrap was a half mile. A pair of socks is a quarter of a mile.

"You should start telling people that," Brother said. "A quarter of a mile of knitting sounds a lot more impressive."

He has a point.

Keepin' On Keepin' On

Blondie leaves on Sunday night.

She is going to Florida for college, and won't be back in NorCal until Christmas. (She is spending Thanksgiving with her brothers on the East Coast.)

Her going away present is a satchel. A hand knit felted satchel adapted from the pattern in Hip to Knit by ???.

I made myself one a couple of years ago, that I came across when unpacking for the apartment. I love it, so quickly started using it again. Blondie saw it, loved it, and asked if I could make her one in emerald and forest green. (Mine is teal and turquoise.)

I of course agreed...I am a push over, and she was VERY sick at the time. I just can't seem to tell the kid "no"!

Now I have 3 days left to finish it. (including felting)

And I am not done.

The problem with felting is that you have to knit the pre-felted item a lot BIGGER than it will end up being. A satchel is not a small thing. The pre-felted pieces seem to be going on and on and on and on and on and on and on...you get the idea.

Its not even hard knitting. There is just a lot of it.

I am starting to hate emerald green!

Knowing What Really Matters

I spent a good part of yesterday with my friend Sushi looking for an apartment. I had been hoping to move the beginning of July/August.

We went to a very nice complex and talked to the management, picked up a rental application...and most importantly toured a vacant apartment.

There were several things that I definitely needed to know, such as: does it include a washer and dryer? is parking assigned? what utilities are included? is high-speed internet available?

Still...in the end...I knew what really mattered:

Would the closet hold all of my yarn?



(Turns out it would...so I went ahead and rented it. Now instead of mid-summer, I am moving next Saturday! My stash and swift will finally come out of storage!)

The Scarf that Knit Itself

Per the requests mentioned in a previous post, I was needing to make a scarf for the Matador's birthday last Sunday.(I had just finished Broseph's scarf, and frankly was not in the mood to knit any scarf, for any guy, any time soon...still what has to be done, has to be done.)

The Matador had requested a black scarf. He is a big guy (read as tall, not wide), and so would need a relatively long scarf. Also, being about to turn 19, and very guy-ish, he was only going to be satisfied with a plain boring vanilla scarf. Nothing fancy, no color work, no detailing. What was stretching before me was essentially miles and miles of colorless and mind-numbingly boring knitting.

Berkeley went with me to Knit This, Purl That...although how I am able to convince non-knitters to go with me to LYS's is beyond me. I had decided that I wanted to whip this thing out as quickly as possible, and that meant one thing: CHUNKY YARN. (However, I had to bear in mind that if it was too chunky it might border on the girly, and therefore be unacceptable.) After looking at literally every skein of yarn in the shop, I decided on Brown Sheep's Burly Spun in Dark Charcoal. It was chunky, but it was single ply, which seemed to up the masculine factor. It also had a wickedly cool name...I mean, what guy doesn't want to be "burly"? Finally, by doing a dark charcoal instead of a black, the scarf would be slightly more interesting.

I knit it up on size 13 needles in a 1X1 rib. (That way it wouldn't roll, but would be a little slicker than a straight garter stitch scarf.) It took me, I kid you not, 2 movies and a tv show to finish. I worked on it during the Wednesday teen movie at the library, and while watching another movie with Blondie at home, and one episode of Biggest Loser. This scarf literally knit itself. (A huge relief to have a project that actually didn't fight me!)

I gave it to Matador at his birthday party at Round Table Pizza after evening services. He immediately put it on, and had a picture taken in it. He also wore it the rest of the night. (The next morning, he had made the scarf picture his new profile photo on facebook...after carefully editing me out of it!) He even sent word to me later in the week that he had worn the scarf every day since he received it.

I love it when projects actually turn out. I love burly spun wool, it was an absolute joy to work with. And most of all, I love it when people enjoy the hand knits I give them.

Because Her Foot Was Cold

I have a rule: I only make socks for myself. Everyone else's feet are too big.

The only time I broke this rule was when I gave a pair of socks to Ontie for reaching her Weight Watcher's goal. (Also, we have the same size feet, so it wasn't any added work.)

However, I recently broke the rule again for Blondie, whose feet are at least 3 sizes larger than mine. Why? Simple. Her foot was cold.

I was knitting on the sectional in our family room (surprise surprise), while Blondie played Guitar Hero barefoot. I was finishing up the Iris socks. (Plain vanilla sock pattern: 2X rib with a short row heel.) I had completed one of the socks, and had it sitting on the back of the couch for comparison with the mostly done sock. (I always size the first sock off of my actual foot, and then size the second one off of the first.) Blondie asked what I was working on. I told her a sock, and held up the in progress needles. She looked at it quizzically. (Which wasn't surprising since a sock in progress on two circulars IS pretty confusing to non-knitters.) I then tossed the finished sock to her so that she could see the end result. She was impressed, and then promptly pulled it on her foot.

I was shocked. It fit! It seems that though Blondie's feet are WAY longer than mine, they are also incredibly narrow. I have really short feet, but they are incredibly wide. So, the total area of our feet is identical, just the dimensions are different. She asked if she could leave it on, because her foot was cold. I said sure. (She looked adorable with one sock on and one sock off, and even at one point switched it to the other foot.)

When I finished the second sock, I looked at the pair. Blondie's feet, being longer than mine, had changed the shape of the original sock. I thought about it, remembered how much she had liked the sock, reminded myself that I hadn't exactly been "feeling" the yarn in the first place and had nothing that matched it....and caved.

Iris socks now live upstairs with Blondie. She was grateful...and since I have spent many an evening in bed with her watching tv, I was glad to finally have a barrier between myself and her FREEZING feet.

The Scarf that didn't WANT to be Knit

I went to Target a WHILE ago with Broseph and Matador. (And by a while ago I mean a couple weeks before Halloween!) I needed to get some key components for my NCIS Abby costume, namely goth boots. Before we left, the three of us wandered over to the men's accessories section...where all of the hats were. While trying them on joking around, Broseph picked up a very suave brown fedora with a tan and orange band. It looked amazing on him. Matador and I, with some help from a Target employee who wandered by, convinced him that he had to buy it. He could wear it when he does concerts. My wheedling took the form of a promise to knit him a scarf to match the hat.

When I got home I promptly designed the "Fretwork" scarf, which had a slipstitch detail loosely based on a guitar neck. I even found two balls of Debbie Bliss yarn in chocolate brown in the stash. I cast on immediately.

I knit that scarf in my down time for several weeks, even getting so far as to join the second ball to the first. When I was 3/4 done I realized that I had cast on WAY too wide and that I was going to be stuck with a weenie little short scarf. (As she puts it in her candleflame scarf pattern...I was going to have a highwater scarf.) This was unacceptable.

The problems were:

• I should have realized the scarf was too wide when I went to join the second ball...duh, that was the halfway point!
• I had used stash yarn and lost the ball bands so there was no way to get additional yarn.
• I was using smallish needles for a scarf, so it was not a fast project to knit.
• The yarn was a solid color, so there were no little color surprises to keep me intrigued.
• The pattern, while pretty, could not be brainlessly knit during movies or tv shows when the lack of color variation wouldn't have mattered, because I had to actually look at every row I knit.

But, since I love Broseph, I unravelled the ENTIRE scarf and recast it on. Now I just had to go through the whole painful process again. So, I reacted in the same way I always react. I procrastinated. I knit A LOT of other things before picking this one up again. In fact, it was only guilt that finally drove me to force myself to knit it again.

To add insult to injury, the last 1/3 of the yarn was knotted into a riotous bundle of nastiness. I spent almost 2 hours untangling it and rolling what was left into a neat little ball...which then, of course, rolled all over the floor as I finished the scarf. (I seriously need to learn how to hand wind center pull balls.)

The end result, I must admit, did make the whole painful process worthwhile. I finished the scarf right before class started at Preacher and Psych's house last night. I wove the ends in and tossed it across the living room to Broseph. The wonderful guy wore the scarf for the duration of class and the rest of the evening. I think he really did appreciate it. He wanted to change before I took a picture... but I just wanted the thing photographed, blogged about, and DONE WITH!!!

Now...I just have to convince him to buy a camel corduroy blazer to wear in concert with Fretwork and the Fedora!