Slow but steady

There's not much point in posting another photo of the lace edging for the baby blanket, but it's going pretty well. I need a total of 4 corners and 72 lace repeats; I've completed 1 corner and 29 repeats. It's going to take a while and I'm sure the baby will be born before it's done, but it's not impossible!

I did block the hoodies, and I have even bought buttons for them! Maybe I'll finish sewing buttons on one of them today. In the meantime, here is a teaser photo of one of them blocking...

Do those colors pop or what? I'm delighted!

I may or may not have mentioned I've also started some fingerless gloves for my lovely friend Josie. I'm not 100% sure of the color choice now that I've started it, but I'll go on and finish and if I don't like them, I'll make another pair. I'm using 00 needles because she has slender hands, and I couldn't find a small enough pattern.

The blue is the 'trim' and the multi is the body. I'm just not sure. This is a 1x1 rib so it looks a bit odd close up like this. You have to remember how small it really is.

Nice thing about knitting is you can always redo or start over. All it costs is yarn. And heaven knows I have plenty of that...

Heading towards the finish line!

I thought I blogged before I went out of town on a trip, but I realize now that I didn't, so sorry for the long gap. But that long gap yielded some results!

This little puppy is all ready for blocking, then buttons — ends are sewn in and everything!

And this one just needs one cuff sewn in and it, too, hops into the blocking bath:

And check this out — this silly star blanket I started about 4 years ago for a baby that is never going to get it now :-) – it's now planned for my cousin's child, due next month. The blanket portion is finally done!

I was dreading knitting the miles and miles of lace edging that have to go around this — and I know I'm going to hate sewing it on, especially since I forgot to slip the stitch at the start of every row on the main blanket, so it won't match up for mattress stitch. But once I started knitting the lace, I just fell in love. Even with all the lifelines, you can see it's going to be just spectacular!

That's the news from this end of the knitting universe. How are you all?

%/@#*($*@(#$ corgi !!!

Ok. I like corgis. The four-legged ones that are warm-blooded and bark. But let's face it, knitting one out of sock yarn on US #0 needles (which, in case you didn't know, are pointy and like to make holes in your fingertips) is not going to be my idea of a good time. And sewing it up is going to be... uh. Even. More. Fun.

Here are some of the parts:

Why am I doing this, you ask? Well. My friend Deb begged for a knitted corgi. She begged many times over a long period of time. She wore me down.

If I get through this without stabbing someone with those needles, I'll be doing well.

Coming along quickly!

I'm actually making good progress on the boys' cardis. This one just needs the arms hemmed, sewn in, ends woven in, blocked and buttons:

 

 And believe it or not, this one is almost done too. I'm just finishing up the hood now; then I'll do the orange button band and hem/sew in arms. The arms are knitted.

As usual, I'm looking forward to button shopping. As the buttons will go on the contrast-color bands, I'm thinking of going with purple, but I'll see what strikes me at the button shop.

Meantime, I've started a project that is going to make me cuss my way into the lower layers of Hell – the corgi from the book Best in Show. Tiny needles, tiny yarn, colorwork (which I am not yet comfortable with), tons of little pieces, tons of sewing up. I must really like the friend I am knitting this for. Might not like her so much by the time it's done. ;-)

Still here, really!

I know, I haven't been posting. For a long time that was because I wasn't knitting. But I'm knitting now!

We've had house guests non-stop (with lots of overlaps) since Thanksgiving, but they have all gone home now, and I feel I can breathe a little and blog a little :-) Don't get me wrong — it was great fun — but it's also nice to have a little time for my own hobbies again.

I've been knitting on two lovely hooded cardigans for a pair of twin five-year-old boys.  One said his favorite colors were purple and red; the other, purple and orange. So that's what they will get. This is the Bar Harbor Hoodie from Creative Knitting.

I am using Cascade 220 Superwash, by the way — one of my go-to yarns for knitting for kids. Not so much babies, because it's not crazy-crazy soft; but it is a nice cross between soft and hard-wearing, perfect for kids.

This one is done except for the arms and weaving in the ends. Oh, and buttons. Purple heather and red heather — love it.

 This one's obviously the orange ones. I tried three different "orange" colors from Cascade and ended up with this tangerine one. It needed to go well with the purple, be different enough from the red, and look more orange than yellow. I think this is good. As usual, the photo isn't perfect, but you can catch the luminous quality of this tangerine.

I'm doing a trick with the sleeves. Instead of just knitting 1.5" of the 3x1 rib, I knit 1.5", then a row of purls, then another 1.5" of rib. The bottom 1.5" will be turned in and sewn like a hem. This makes it reversible, and this means that the ribbing can be turned back and still look good. I think this will help the 5-year-olds wear this size-6 cardi right away, and it'll fold down when they're ready for it. Finally, if they can wear it long enough, I can take the hem out and let them wear the ribbing as 3" long (the purls won't detract too much, I don't think — they'll look like a design element).

What have you all been up to? I'm hoping to get bloggin' a bit more in 2012.

I know (hangs head)

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, but I had an excuse — I had to get over The Need to Frog. You know how that can go. Sometimes you need a deep breath and a big drink to get over it.

See, you'd think I was doing really well on my Joanie sweater, and so did I. I swear, I did try it on as I went, and it seemed okay.


Until I started the sleeve... and realized I had knit a straitjacket.
Excuse the dreadfully unflattering photo. It was early morning. The key here is, I can't lift my arm any further than I'm lifting it.

The problem is that the yoke is just too deep:
Going by the photos in the pattern, the ribbing should stop just before the peak of the bust, but on me it starts at the end of the bust. Now, some of this is because of the fact the buttons aren't on so it's hanging slightly lower than it normally would, but not 4" of it.

I need to rip back the whole body and about 2-3" of the ribbing, and make the yoke the length indicated for size medium. This should not be a surprise to me, since I am short and stocky, but I just didn't realize the yoke was too long until I had armholes as reference. In my defense, I have never knit a yoked sweater before.

Well, as you can imagine... I started knitting something else immediately!

Progress on self-indulgence

A while back, I realized it was kind of annoying to have to pull on well-worn, slightly-stiff sweatshirts when I wanted a layer of warm around the house and, for whatever reason, wanted a pullover instead of a cardigan. I normally choose a cardigan because I don't like to feel things against my throat, but sometimes I just want that pullover warmth, and loose-necked old sweatshirts has been my only option for a while now.

An excellent excuse to knit myself something.

I've planned two pullovers. One's for winter and will be wool; one, for transitional seasons and cool summer evenings, will be a cotton/silk/nylon blend. Specifically, the latter will be Joanie, a recent Knitty favorite, in Classic Elite Classic Silk in a gorgeous cranberry color which is of course impossible to reproduce in a photo despite some fiddling in iPhoto:

Not only can I not show you the color properly, I can't share with you the absolute yumminess of this yarn. Knit into ribs for the collar, it's cushy and irresistible. I've actually already washed and blocked the upper part of the pullover (to check length), so I can tell you that the ribs hold up and it's beyond squishy. I can't wait to be done. It'll be hard to take off.

My health's been getting me down a bit lately, so it's nice to have something positive going on.

Cute but irritating / cute and fun

Knitted toys can go either way. I knitted up a couple stuffed animals for my tiny friend Zoe the other day. One was knit from a vintage pattern as published in Vintage Knits for Modern Babies [Ravelry link here],which is a darling book with lovely patterns that have various errors in them. There are no published errata, but I figured out the errors in this one relatively quickly. However, there is no denying it was a bitch to knit. Traditional knitted toys aren't really designed around the pleasure of the knitter.

It is cute though:



I am constitutionally incapable of creating a pompom. By constitutionally incapable, I mean that I begin to scream and rage after the first disastrous attempt and become physically unable to try again. I proved this yet again on this fellow, and then decided to do a sort of woven-over-stuffing tail which worked out all right, if not awesome:

But then there's the other sort of pattern. The kind your fingers itch to knit, the kind that makes knitting pure pleasure. Ysolda creates that kind of toy pattern, and I have made several hedgehogs from her darling "Smith" pattern [Ravelry link here].

I know I'll be making more, too. Crazy fun to knit, and the only sewing is the embroidery at the end. Highly recommended!

Hope you are all enjoying your Memorial Day weekend. I had a great time during the first half of it and have been basically fallen over during the last half, but I have no regrets.

Been gone so long...

Sorry about that. I tore some ab muscle tissue in early March. Resistance to proper diagnosis on the part of my doc led to resistance to strange referrals (I didn't want invasive tests!) on my part, which led to reinjury.. it's a long story. Mostly, though, I've just been in a lot of pain, especially when sitting, and hence not using my laptop much in my spare time (and missing some work and social life, too). I'm still hurting, but having a proper diagnosis and a plan for healing is giving me a skoche of energy to update the blog.

I've missed you.

I've been doing as much knitting as I can, some of it while horizontal. I have several things to show you, but let's start with this because I am wildly in love with it.

It's Helena [Ravelry link], done in two colors of Debbie Bliss Cathay, one of my favorite yarns for knitting for babies because it's cotton/rayon/silk (and sooooo soft and silky), has a lovely sheen, and is MACHINE WASHABLE. Crazy. Anyway, knit for a friend's baby, not yet blocked.

What have you been up to? Please say you're still out there!

Try, try again

You'll probably remember the vest I knit that didn't fit me. Fortunately, it fit Earin's husband Dick, but I really did want and need a vest!

I decided to try designing my own.

I dug out some cheap yarn my aunt had found in a thrift store. I measured myself. I drew pictures. I did the math (lots of triangles and geometry). And took a deep breath, and knit. I tried to trust the math. It made me nervous. I couldn't believe it would end up fitting. It just all seemed like a leap of faith.

Trust the math.

It fits! Ok, my husband says it is "okay to wear to work if you don't mind looking somewhat barrel-like". I think that's partly owing to using a heavy aran-weight yarn, thicker than I prefer. But it is comfortable, generally follows my curves (I could have made the waist smaller and I will do so next time), and keeps me warm. Plus I really love what I did with the neckline (growing the trim out of the cable).

Hurrah!

Spurred by success, I decided to tackle my demon — Fair Isle. Dunno why I'm so afraid of it — I guess mostly because I'm not comfortable yet with yarn in my right hand, and yet for the life of me can't manage to knit with both yarns in my left hand. So I picked a simple project (Ysolda's Cotton Reel Mitts) and dug out some scrap sock yarn (leftover bits of a Kaffe Fassett color extravaganza and a plain light green), and cast on. It is actually going all right...

It does seem the floats are a little odd over the needle changes but I have hopes it'll block out okay. Here's the inside, cuz I know how you knitters are...

I can tell you one thing. I'm going to run out of yarn. (Good thing it's just for practice and I don't care if the mitts match...)

I have no idea what I'm doing.