I'm going to be starting a pattern from the French Chic Baby Knits book I picked up. As I'm completely broke and don't have a snowball's chance in hell at getting the called-for yarns, I sucked it up and swatched the blue fingering-weight cotton from one of the SalvAl frogged sweaters. Gauge on US3 needles is about 7 sts per inch (I say almost because the 7th stitch just barely ooched up on the one inch mark) which puts me about where I need to be, I think.
Pattern as written calls for the front and back to be worked seperately, but I think that's just leaving myself open for a lot of seaming heartache...so here I go, my first attempt at altering a pattern to do it in the round. I'm not sure what the rules are as far as putting the pattern up here in its entirety so I can keep track of the measurements, so I'm just going to put little bullets where they are in the book and notate the changes that way.
*CO126 (63); finish as written
*K 54 (27) and leave on a spare needle, cast off 18 (9), K to end. Cont. on 54 (27) sts now rem on needle for one leg, finish as written
...Not as much math as I was really worried about, so I think I'll be alright if I put markers where the original counts were so I can keep them all straight and can keep myself going on these tiny needles with tiny yarn.
Repeat with me now: I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...
Friday, October 30, 2009
New Old Books
The Husbeast and I have been ransacking the house since we've been here trying to go through all the piles of STUFF so we can get things ready for the baby. There's been a lot of shuffling things around, including a bunch of old books that have been doing nothing but gathering dust for the past 20 years or so. So we started going through them, got the OK from Mum on the ones we wanted to get rid of (so we didn't unknowingly oust some hugely important sentimental tome), and went up to a used bookstore that takes books for store credit.
Can I just take a minute to say....WIN!
I got a copy of Knitted Gifts, which is by the same lady who did Zen and the Art of Knitting. I loved that one, and will hopefully someday have it again (I lent it to a friend in Pittsburgh after teaching her to knit) so I'm excited for this one. It's kind of nice that it's a bunch of little short pieces--very handy for waiting rooms, which I've been seeing a lot of lately.
There's also French Chic Baby Knits, which seemed to transcend hours of Ravelry-induced baby-stuff-overload. It was like, "Here, it's a perfect simple romper just like you've been looking for but never quite nailed down. And a jacket or two, and some different booties and hats as well." Fan-flippin-tastic. The only issues are that A-it is French, so it admits early on that a lot of the yarns used aren't easily accessed outside Europe and B-it's an older book, so even the yarns that are in Ravelry have been discontinued. Ugh. Lots of fingering-weight stuff from the look of it though, so I'm just going to have to suck it up and whip out some gauge swatches. Siiiigh....it'll be worth it though, right?
The last one is A Passion for Color. The first half is on dying techniques using natural dyes, which is really the coolest thing ever and had me all excited in the store. The second half is a total trip...The patterns are HORRIBLE. Like, cartoon jester horrible, complete with poofy sleeves, a gathered waist and cuff with ginormous ruffles....Halloween costume worthy ridiculous stuff with CRAZY amounts of patterns going all over the place. The saving grace for the pattern half of the book is that some of the fair isle charts are pretty neat, so long as you take them individually. Throwing 15 on one garment? Total train wreck...but there were a good lot of them that I think will be awesome by themselves on hats and things.
All in all, very exciting...
As far as actual projects, the Moderne baby blanket is done save weaving in ends, including the crochet border I did since I don't have the book to see how it was actually supposed to be done. I just wish I could find a flipping tapestry needle--it's SO FRUSTRATING being so close to being done (on two projects, mind) and not being able to just wrap it up and finish.
Other than that...the only thing still on the needles right now is the mohair scarf. I want to start something new, but I can't quite decide what it should be. I'm torn between wanting to do baby things (which is sort of limited by what I have in the stash that's washable) and feeling like I should put things together to try and sell. Maybe I should just take already finished things out in the sun for a photo shoot tomorrow, and then let people look at pictures to order things rather than trying to guess at what they'll want. Mum stole my February Lady to take to school a while back, and people keep telling her to bring a portfolio of what I can do so they can order Christmas gifts...hmm....
Can I just take a minute to say....WIN!
I got a copy of Knitted Gifts, which is by the same lady who did Zen and the Art of Knitting. I loved that one, and will hopefully someday have it again (I lent it to a friend in Pittsburgh after teaching her to knit) so I'm excited for this one. It's kind of nice that it's a bunch of little short pieces--very handy for waiting rooms, which I've been seeing a lot of lately.
There's also French Chic Baby Knits, which seemed to transcend hours of Ravelry-induced baby-stuff-overload. It was like, "Here, it's a perfect simple romper just like you've been looking for but never quite nailed down. And a jacket or two, and some different booties and hats as well." Fan-flippin-tastic. The only issues are that A-it is French, so it admits early on that a lot of the yarns used aren't easily accessed outside Europe and B-it's an older book, so even the yarns that are in Ravelry have been discontinued. Ugh. Lots of fingering-weight stuff from the look of it though, so I'm just going to have to suck it up and whip out some gauge swatches. Siiiigh....it'll be worth it though, right?
The last one is A Passion for Color. The first half is on dying techniques using natural dyes, which is really the coolest thing ever and had me all excited in the store. The second half is a total trip...The patterns are HORRIBLE. Like, cartoon jester horrible, complete with poofy sleeves, a gathered waist and cuff with ginormous ruffles....Halloween costume worthy ridiculous stuff with CRAZY amounts of patterns going all over the place. The saving grace for the pattern half of the book is that some of the fair isle charts are pretty neat, so long as you take them individually. Throwing 15 on one garment? Total train wreck...but there were a good lot of them that I think will be awesome by themselves on hats and things.
All in all, very exciting...
As far as actual projects, the Moderne baby blanket is done save weaving in ends, including the crochet border I did since I don't have the book to see how it was actually supposed to be done. I just wish I could find a flipping tapestry needle--it's SO FRUSTRATING being so close to being done (on two projects, mind) and not being able to just wrap it up and finish.
Other than that...the only thing still on the needles right now is the mohair scarf. I want to start something new, but I can't quite decide what it should be. I'm torn between wanting to do baby things (which is sort of limited by what I have in the stash that's washable) and feeling like I should put things together to try and sell. Maybe I should just take already finished things out in the sun for a photo shoot tomorrow, and then let people look at pictures to order things rather than trying to guess at what they'll want. Mum stole my February Lady to take to school a while back, and people keep telling her to bring a portfolio of what I can do so they can order Christmas gifts...hmm....
Monday, October 26, 2009
Catching Up
It's been ages since I've used this blog; I admit that I usually default to the old Myspace blog when the mood strikes. I have, however, come to the conclusion that 99% of the people I know and have on Myspace don't give a hoot about knitting or yarn or any of that other good stuff. So it's all going here so I can get it out of my system.
Many things have been accomplished since we moved back to Virginia. Aside from weaving in the ends of my February Lady (still have no buttons, but it hasn't stopped me from wearing it), I whipped out a top-down raglan from some of the Lamb's Pride bulky we picked up at Autumn Moon Fest. $10 for 8 skeins...it still makes me all tingley to think about it. Yum. Granted, I'm not really thrilled with the look of the sweater, but part of that could be because I'm big and pregnant, so it stretches kind of weird over the belly. I'm not sure if blocking would really do anything, but then I've never properly blocked anything so it might be a good place to start.
I also did my first fair isle while on bedrest for a weekend, using the Endless Rose pattern. It's pretty much fabulous, despite a few little blips in the decreases where the yellow peeked out and shouldn't have. I didn't notice till I was about done, and at that point was still so damn pleased with myself I didn't care. I've definitely been enjoying having wearable knits, though I'm also desperately trying to figure out what I'm going to do for holiday knitting...Sue would definitely appreciate the hat. But I love the hat. But she would too, and I love Sue...Decisions, decisions.
Some of my recycled yarn got turned into another hat, pretty basic ribbed cap but using the decreases from Endless Rose (I really like how it looks). It's a boring cream hat right now. If I could only find my tapestry needle, I'd do a little viney embroidery over it to jazz it up. It's the first thing I made to put up for sale, but I can't really do anything with it till the stupid needle turns up (loose ends all over the place to weave in).
As far as current WIPs, the log cabin blanket I've been working on for the baby is still ongoing. I was considering frogging the project and using the yarn (Merino 5 superwash--it's squishy and delicious and I LOVE it; the fact that I got it on sale for less than five bucks a skein just adds to my affection) for a bunting. Harlan the Husbeast was against it though, apparently he's pretty fond of the blanket as it stands. So I'm leaving it alone...for whatever reason, it's been hard for me to pick up. I should probably get the heck over it though, since there's a chance baby Garrett is going to be here sooner than December and will need that wooly goodness.
The project that's had my attention for the past few days is the mohair lace scarf I'm working on for Becca. I started off with Branching Out, but the Kid Seta is an amazing varigated goldy yellow-orange-russet fuzzball of sunshiney loveliness and the pattern stitches got lost in the color variances. I wrestled through a pattern repeat or three (it helped me realize that patterns with 10 rows to keep track of aren't great for me--I get up and down too much, it's hard to keep track of where I am) before deciding it would be best to gently frog it and find a new pattern. Several chocolate chip cookies and an hour or so on Ravelry later, I decided on the Easy Lace Stole skinnied up to make the scarf. I was a little worried that it'd end up looking too simple and boring, but it does exactly what I wanted it to--show off the yarn. It's pretty much gorgeous, the mohair's got such a nice little halo thing going and the stitch pattern is basic enough not to get lost in the color changes. To say I'm pleased with it would be a bit of an understatement...I really am going to have to get myself some blocking materials before it's finished.
That's about it for wip's, except for poor Harlan's socks which still aren't done. There's approximately one and a half socks at this point, like a year after I started on them. At least I got the half-sock back on the needles and figured out where I left off on the pattern...right? That's a good thing, isn't it? ...I guess I should bump that up my list of priorities after the blanket.
Many things have been accomplished since we moved back to Virginia. Aside from weaving in the ends of my February Lady (still have no buttons, but it hasn't stopped me from wearing it), I whipped out a top-down raglan from some of the Lamb's Pride bulky we picked up at Autumn Moon Fest. $10 for 8 skeins...it still makes me all tingley to think about it. Yum. Granted, I'm not really thrilled with the look of the sweater, but part of that could be because I'm big and pregnant, so it stretches kind of weird over the belly. I'm not sure if blocking would really do anything, but then I've never properly blocked anything so it might be a good place to start.
I also did my first fair isle while on bedrest for a weekend, using the Endless Rose pattern. It's pretty much fabulous, despite a few little blips in the decreases where the yellow peeked out and shouldn't have. I didn't notice till I was about done, and at that point was still so damn pleased with myself I didn't care. I've definitely been enjoying having wearable knits, though I'm also desperately trying to figure out what I'm going to do for holiday knitting...Sue would definitely appreciate the hat. But I love the hat. But she would too, and I love Sue...Decisions, decisions.
Some of my recycled yarn got turned into another hat, pretty basic ribbed cap but using the decreases from Endless Rose (I really like how it looks). It's a boring cream hat right now. If I could only find my tapestry needle, I'd do a little viney embroidery over it to jazz it up. It's the first thing I made to put up for sale, but I can't really do anything with it till the stupid needle turns up (loose ends all over the place to weave in).
As far as current WIPs, the log cabin blanket I've been working on for the baby is still ongoing. I was considering frogging the project and using the yarn (Merino 5 superwash--it's squishy and delicious and I LOVE it; the fact that I got it on sale for less than five bucks a skein just adds to my affection) for a bunting. Harlan the Husbeast was against it though, apparently he's pretty fond of the blanket as it stands. So I'm leaving it alone...for whatever reason, it's been hard for me to pick up. I should probably get the heck over it though, since there's a chance baby Garrett is going to be here sooner than December and will need that wooly goodness.
The project that's had my attention for the past few days is the mohair lace scarf I'm working on for Becca. I started off with Branching Out, but the Kid Seta is an amazing varigated goldy yellow-orange-russet fuzzball of sunshiney loveliness and the pattern stitches got lost in the color variances. I wrestled through a pattern repeat or three (it helped me realize that patterns with 10 rows to keep track of aren't great for me--I get up and down too much, it's hard to keep track of where I am) before deciding it would be best to gently frog it and find a new pattern. Several chocolate chip cookies and an hour or so on Ravelry later, I decided on the Easy Lace Stole skinnied up to make the scarf. I was a little worried that it'd end up looking too simple and boring, but it does exactly what I wanted it to--show off the yarn. It's pretty much gorgeous, the mohair's got such a nice little halo thing going and the stitch pattern is basic enough not to get lost in the color changes. To say I'm pleased with it would be a bit of an understatement...I really am going to have to get myself some blocking materials before it's finished.
That's about it for wip's, except for poor Harlan's socks which still aren't done. There's approximately one and a half socks at this point, like a year after I started on them. At least I got the half-sock back on the needles and figured out where I left off on the pattern...right? That's a good thing, isn't it? ...I guess I should bump that up my list of priorities after the blanket.
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