40 posts tagged “wip”
Karen noted today at BobaKnit that I haven't posted much recently. It's not because I haven't been knitting, I have! Niels is out of school and Stefan didn't go anywhere, and is napping even less since our schedule has become more loose, so I haven't had much online time. Sorry about that! Here's what I've been up to:
1) In the past week or so I knitted a Baby Surprise Jacket for my cousin Betsy's baby. This yarn started out as a February Lady Sweater (more on that later) but it just wasn't working, which is too bad. The yarn itself (All Seasons Cotton, of course) is so nice and squishy in garter stitch, but that variegated purple just wasn't working for me. Now I know why you can still get the variegated shades even though they have been discontinued for a while! Anyway, it makes a darling baby sweater. I might even knit her another sweater, or maybe one for Vibble, because she certainly knows how to rock the hand knits, since I have six or so balls of this yarn left! Remind me not to buy a bag of yarn just because it's cheap when I'm not sure I like the color, okay?
So the sweater just needs some buttons and I'm not sure I love the crochet button hole I added at the top after I realized that I started too far down with the buttons. We'll see if that changes. (Ravelry project details)
2) The Ribby Pulli is almost done. I need to weave in some ends. Something about this yarn does not lend itself well to ends being woven in, or rather, ends staying woven in so I'm splitting the plies in two, tying a well placed (I hope) knot and then weaving in the split plies in a way that they won't show on the front. It's tedious to say the least. Also, I'm not sure my bod can handle this sweater. It's very va-va-voom, which is good on some parts and not so good on others. I know you all get my drift, right?
3) I started the February Lady Sweater, twice. I started it in the above purple All Seasons Cotton and I was so in love with it that I found myself browsing CucumberPatch on eBay for colors I liked on sale. (Ugh, this is why I need to stay away from her store, I just bought her last bag of Military All Seasons Cotton because it's the yarn I used for Erik's sweater and I have six balls of it left and with another bag I can certainly knit something for myself. That yarn is addictive.) Anyway! For the February Lady Sweater I realized that I should stash dive rather than buy something new so I am using the soy silk I bought at my first stitches which has already been knit into two different projects, neither of which panned out. Third time's the charm, right?
This picture also gives me a chance to show off my adorable Ravelry Daily Dose of (plant) Fiber bag. I really like it. I think I'll get more use out of it than I would have out of the shirt, since I wasn't fast enough to get the shirts when they first came out.
In non-knitting news, I'm preparing for our trip to the Netherlands. We leave in just over a week. Well, there is some knitting news there. I was debating which projects to take. I think I'll take the Lady Sweater, a couple of sock projects and then some of my oddballs that I've gotten for swatching and my Barbara Walker treasury. I want to design a sweater for myself from scratch rather than constantly changing other people's designs.
I was going to say that I had truly non-knitting news: I'm trying to get myself to bike again. Lisa, a BobaKnitter, recently upgraded her bike trailer and generously passed on a Burley trailer that someone had given her to me. She thought she had forgotten a piece so I hadn't tried it out. She looked around for it and told me recently that she thought that the piece must be in the trailer itself, so I gave it a shot today, and it was in there. Last week when Niels was at my mom's I had taken Stefan to the library in the bike seat but he didn't like that. I'm not sure if it was my backpack in his face, the fact that I was really low in air for the first half of the ride or the wobbliness of riding on the back of a bike pedaled by someone who hadn't ridden a bike in (oh my god) 13 years. In any case, he wasn't interested in getting back in that seat but he and Niels were both excited to try the trailer. Its tires needed air too, so our first stop was the gas station and then I just rode around our neighborhood a bit, trying to get a feel for the bike again. It was fun. I'm going to try to bike over to Niels' gym camp tomorrow to drop him off. It's right by his school so it will be good practice for the fall! I have been eyeing the Xtracycles (I like the Electra Townie one) and I still think I want to get one eventually. There is not much room in that trailer for both kids, besides, I really like the idea of having them closer to me.
The way all that is knitting related is that I'm hoping to lose a bit of weight and then the above va-va-voom-y sweater might fit me better and I can wear it in public! Wish me luck.
I went to the Purlescence sale yesterday. I was trying to stay away, but I was holding out hope that All Seasons Cotton would be on sale, so I could get some to make Manon. It wasn't, but I found some Maizy and Puffin that I liked, for socks and a baby blanket, respectively. Then I broke down and go the All Seasons Cotton too. I am accumulating sweater quantities of yarn. I need to get on the ball and start knitting sweaters faster.
I also wore my Tomato yesterday. I was going to wear it on Friday for HK, but Friday is preschool day with Stefan and I didn't really want paint and/or play dough or any of the other things the preschoolers were like to smear on it.
So while I was at Purlescecne, I picked Sandi and Nathania's brains about fit adjustments. Sandi measured my shoulders and helped me measure bust in the front versus the back, so I know how much more fabric I need. I noticed in wearing the Tomato that the shoulders are slightly too big and that the side "seam" where the shaping is gets pulled forwards and the sweater bags slightly in the back. I have a lot of adjusting to do! I think that Cookie was right recently when she pointed out that since I change patterns so much, maybe I should just start from scratch. I am going to get some knitwear design books out of the library and do that sometime soon, I think. I hope. You know, in my copious free time!
I seem to have a touch of startitis, so here's a shot of the Montego Bay Scarf that I started in BMFA Bambu. It's soft and lovely and I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.
I am a sneeze away from being done with my Organic Chocolate Tomato tee. I've been quietly knitting away on it. It's hard for me to tell if it's going well, since it will shrink 10% when I wash and dry it the first time. It doesn't look great now, but hopefully that will change. I also have mixed feelings about the colorwork, but I think I will like that much better after washing as well. Washing fixes everything!
The thing washing won't fix is that the ribbing on the one sleeve I finished is too loose. I'm going to reknit it with smaller needles. Cookie helpfully pointed that out to me, but was kind enough to also warn me not to show her my sweaters, because she'll always find something wrong. Duly noted, Cookie!
I have also pulled my Lotus Blossom Tank out of hibernation. It was actually pretty much finished. I had sewn the shoulder seams and just had to finish around the edges and it was done. But, it wasn't right. I did two sets of short rows for the bust and that was too much. In addition, I hadn't knit far enough on the sides so it did some ugly angling things. I ripped back to right before I started the second set of short rows and I'm moving forward. It might even be done in the right season!
I knit another one of those adorable bunnies. This one is going off to my cousin's wife (along with the gift I knit for their baby that I have been meaning to send for months! shame on me) for her niece who was in an accident. I wanted to knit her something soft and cuddly for her recuperation. I read on my cousin's wife blog today, though, that she's diving off the couch to scare her parents already, so maybe she's done needing cuddly things. Hopefully she'll enjoy it anyway. The yarn I made it out of is Puffin by Crystal Palace which is like strips of microfleece. It's very soft. (Ravelry project details)
The only other thing I've been doing is planning for future projects. I slipped at Purlescence today and bought 13 more balls of Rowan Purelife to make the No Gap Wrap sweater form More Big GIrl Knits. That wasn't why I went there. Darn those yarn fumes.
I also picked up some Rowan Damask to use as the accent yarn in the Slipstream Pullover, also from More Big Girl Knits. I knit it up in the garter stitch slip pattern with the hempathy I had to see how it looks. I like it. I just need to knit another swatch of the Damask to wash a few times to see how it holds up. The yarn label says it's very delicate, but I want to see what it really can stand.
We drove up to Portland this week to visit family. That's 10 hours of Erik driving for me to knit! Well, I drove for a few hours on the way up, but I did get a lot of knitting done. On the way up, I finished my Mingus socks, knit a couple of fish tawashis for the boys and knit part of a dishcloth that ended up being ripped out. On the way back, I made a lot of progress on my Chocolate Tomato.
The kids brought their umbrellas and were hoping to get splashed by the falls.
There are also gorgeous views to be had of the Columbia River Gorge. Of course, the photographs don't do it justice.
It's not that I have been knitting, I have. I'm working on Mingus, by Cookie, but I'm doing them toe up. Just since this is a knitting blog, I'll give you a quick peek at them. It's not terribly exciting. Actually, they're much farther along than this now, I just haven't taken any more photos.
Okay, so the knitting is out of the way, now I can talk about what I made today: an Amy Butler Frenchy Bag.
I think if I make another (and I might, in the shoulder bag size) I would use the decorator fabrics and sew down the middle of at least one of the pockets to give a smaller pocket option and also to keep them from flopping open quite so much.
It's been all blankets all the time around here this week. Back in January I saw the book Knitalong online somewhere and started to think about making a blanket for Anabel's new little one. Specifically, I saw the Blessingway blanket, which looked like something Anabel would like. I talked to Kristi about it and we debated whether that was the right project, particularly since the book wasn't out and then thought about doing something more square, but what yarn? What patterns? You know, all the things you debate when starting a project. Kristi then happened to see a class a couple of friends of hers taught at her local LYS on log cabin knitting. We discussed a couple of different yarns to use adn then settled on Pakucho. Kristi picked some colors and I knit the first square.
We decided that we had a winner! So Mary and I wound yarn into the kits and distributed it to Janice, Lisa D, Lisa L, Karen, Rachel, Jeni, Teenuh, Jill and, last but not least, Cookie. One kit was sent off to Kristi and then I waited for them all to come back. There were more knitters than there were squares to knit, so Juls and Hannah contributed to the ordering of the yarn. The last square was delivered to me on Thursday at which point I got the crazy idea that we could finish the blanket by today because Kristi is in town and I thought it would be nice for her to be there when we gave Anabel the blanket. I sent out a desperate plea for help with seaming and Cookie, Jeni, Lisa D, Karen and Teenuh all came over yesterday evening to help. Thanks all! By 11pm, the squares were seamed.
Originally I had a crazy plan (I'm all about the crazy plans) for a border with mitered corners. Then I thought about an i-cord border. In the end I was pressed for time and overwhelmed by how large the blanket had become. Each of those blocks is 12" square! So, in the end, a crochet edging was added in natural. I did one row of single crochet and then one of half double crochet. I was pleased with the result.
(To those BobaKnitters mentioned here who haven't signed the card for Anabel, I have it, touch base with me so you can sign it, or email me a message to put in!)
I've been working on Oblique, trying to get it finished by stitches. I haven't made much progress, well I made progress then I ripped it out. I was all the way to the bottom ribbing and I put it on and realized that it was awful. Boiled ass is how I described to the BobaKnitters. While I was trying it on one of the times I found myself thinking "too bad I can't overlap it like this and make it stay that way." Then I realized, I could do just that, by making it a pullover! So that's what I'm doing. I ripped back to where I needed to be on the front increases and then increased again, this time using the textured lace pattern. When I had enough of that, with some overlap, I knit on the collar and then connected the fronts and did some bust decreases in the texture lace section until it was as wide as the back section of the same stitch pattern. I don't know if that makes any sense. Here's a picture:
I think it looks good so far! I hope it continues to look good. (The white thread across my bust is a lifeline, in case I needed to rip back to where I connected the fronts.)
I realized on Wednesday that tonight was the Hannukah dinner I was having with my family so I needed to get the menorah pillow all finished up. A trip to Jo-Ann for buttons and a pillow form solved that problem. I am very pleased with how the pillow turned out, and I think my grandmother was too.
So there you go, I may be silent, but it doesn't mean I'm not busy!
I decided that I didn't want to snip and repair, I wanted to drop back to fix the mis-crossed cable in my menorah pillow. Fixing the cable wasn't a problem, what was hard was then knitting back up the flame for that branch of the candelabra. I don't think it's an invisible fix and now I'm wondering if I ruined it. I hope not.
