Fair Isle

Good news! A local grocery store delivers, so I don't have to leave my apartment, except for school. We don't have a car, so we have to walk down to the grocery store, then back. It's not fun, especially with the snow that's been around lately.

In knitting news, the veil is still rather unimpressive. Bradly's turtleshell hat has been ripped, and the black will be replaced with a light grey. Rather than start on that, however, I cast on a new project. Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts. I like 'em, but my progress has led me to be rather confused about my knitting.

For a long time, I was more than happy with stripes as the height of my colorwork experience. Fair Isle was, you know, kind of nifty, but not really my thing. The We Call Them Pirates Mitten was more to prove that I could do Fair Isle than anything else. And once I finished the one, there was no desire to make the second. I could do Fair Isle, I just chose not to.

Then I cast on these mitts. More Fair Isle. And my next small project will probably be a pair of Fair Isle socks. While I still don't see myself ever making a Fair Isle sweater, apparently, I like the technique more than I thought. Of course, this could just be a small phase in my knitting career. This month Fair Isle, next month felting. We'll see.

Weekly Update

Knitting didn't take as much of a backburner as I had hoped. I'm getting my readings done, though, so it's all good.

The Letter Have it Bag is done, just needs to have some ends woven in and be felted. the alternate yarn for the handles is a very close match.

The wedding veil (Ingrid's Bridal Knot shawl) is coming along slowly. I'm on row 25 or so, and the pattern has just barely begun. When there's anything to show, there will be pictures. I will say that I did the invisible cast on, and loved it. I wanted to put that on everything I knit, but not everything needs an invisible cast on.

A while ago, a friend requested a hat with his name on it. My first successful intarsia and I forgot to take a picture before handing it over. Next time I see him, though, pictures.

I also have a mostly-completed Shelden, from Knitty (no pictures, the poor turtle only has three legs). I was showing it off to my boyfriend, who really liked the shell pattern, enough that he wondered if I could put it on a hat for him. I love making my boyfriend stuff, so that's in progress now. I started with an invisible cast on (yay! I got to use it!) and knit a small hem, then started the pattern. We decided on navy and black for the colors, both from my stash, but I'm worried there isn't enough contrast. Plus the bottom edge is a bit scalloped, and I'm not sure how he'll feel about that. Once he's awake, I'll ask him.

Progress will be stalled

Knitting's going to be taking a backseat for a little bit. I'm way behind in my schoolwork, and need to catch up on all the books I'm supposed to be reading before I can spend the entire day knitting again. That being said, I do have this:

My Letter Have It bag is in progress. The front, back and center panel are seamed together. I still need to make the handles and finish sewing on the piping on the front. Oh, and make the piping for the back. But then, it's felting time!

I didn't notice until I took these pictures, but that really looks more like the woman's symbol than an ankh. That's cool, too, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Bag of Woes

First, the veil has been ripped. It will be replaced with Ingrid's Bridal Knot Shawl from Meg Swanson's A Gathering of Lace. With modifications, of course. Why is it I'm scared to change a pattern for something simple, like a hat, but have no trouble rewriting a horribly complex lace shawl pattern? I don't get me sometimes.

The Letter Have It bag has problems, of my own making. I'm using up stash yarn for this, so where the pattern calls for two balls of Cascade 220, I'm using one ball of Paton's Classic Wool (leftover from my Mariah). I expected to run out, and prioritized the knitting order. Back, front, center panel, handles. I made it through the center panel all right, but this is all the yarn I have left:
That's not enough for the handles. But, once again, I have a plan (as often as I say that, it should be my blog title). While I don't have enough Paton's Wool for the handles, I do have these:






That's Lamb's Pride Worsted in Onyx (which all my contrast is in) and Red Baron. Which isn't an exact match for the Paton's, but it is a bright red. I'm going to try a striping thing. We'll see how it goes.

There's an errata for the Letter Have It Bag, on the center panel. Which is good, 'cause I thought that seemed awful long. I'm almost done with the center panel, then once everything's seamed together, I'll post a picture. We should be doing laundry here in the next couple of days, so hopefully it'll be done and I can felt it.

The wedding veil was coming along nicely. But then I looked at it, and it seems too solid for my tastes. I want a piece of lace as a veil, not a solid fabric with holes in it. So once my ball-winder arrives in the mail, it'll get ripped out.

The next incarnation of the veil will come, I'm thinking, from Victorian Lace Today. Surfing blogs, it seems like a fair number of the patterns in there will work, at least in terms of shape. So I'll go out and buy that later today.

A Normal Weekend

Every Saturday, it seems, I get completely bored with whatever I'm knitting and cast on something new. This weekend was no exception.

Pattern: We Call Them Pirate Mittens

Yarn: Knitpicks Telemark in Black and Cream

Needles: Size 3 (3.25 mm)

Comments: Well, my first successful fair-isle, but I don't think there will be a pair of these. I don't wear mittens, as a general rule, and they're still a bit snug. I may try the next mitten one needle size up, or I may just toss this into a drawer as proof that I can do fair-isle.

What did surprise me is that, usually, the one start-to-finish project takes care of everything, and I'm back to knitting on my WIPs. This time, I finished the mitten and still didn't want to knit on anything. So I cast on another thing. The Letter Have it Bag from Stitch 'n' Bitch Nation. I started on the back so I can use it for a gauge swatch, then use Knitter's Graph paper to chart out an ankh for the front of the bag. 'Cause I'm rockin' like that.

Pretty in Petunia

Because pretty in pink would have just been too obvious.

Pattern: Fools Rush, by Cassie.
Yarn: Knitpicks Essential in Petunia
Needles: Size one
Modifications: Subbed in a short-row heel (I hate gussets), and added a slipped stitch down the side of the foot, next to the lace pattern. I kept looking at the picture, and it bothered me that the lace just stopped for no reason. If I had done the gusset, than the decreases would have created that line, but with short rows, there's only, like, six rows of decreases (where I picked up stitches to avoid a hole), so something else had to be done.
Things I'd change: When the author of a pattern suggests going down a needle size to compensate for a looser lace/rib pattern, listen. These don't stay up as well as I would like.

All in all, I still like these socks. They're not replacing my Jaywalkers as my current favorite, but I like them. And, when I'm walking, and I look down and see a flash of pink on my feet, it just makes me smile.

It's a sock yarn miracle, Charlie Brown!

I don't throw the word "miracle" around very often, but it seems appropriate in this case. A miracle along the lines of the Hanukkah one. Where I only had enough sock yarn left in one ball to get me part-way down the leg, and instead, this is what I got:

I'm on the row before the toe decreases. The row before the toe decreases! Out of the same ball of yarn that I got the first sock out of. The socks are my normal length, so it's a sock yarn miracle.

It's actually a little disappointing now that I have to break into the other ball for just these few rows. It's okay though. I have a plan for the leftovers.

And just in case anyone's curious, the doily

has been put to use on my boyfriend's new altar. Happy Valentine's Day, to anyone who celebrates it. Even if you don't, just remember that all the chocolate will be on sale tomorrow.

Knitting friend

I've found a knitting buddy! One of my classmates was wearing your basic first-knitting-project-garter-stitch-scarf. You know the type - purple acrylic, but obviously hand-knit.
We talked for a little bit, then the next class, she asked me a question about knitting in the round (she's figured out DPNs, but wants to know about knitting hats on circulars.) So I gave her my phone number and told her to call me. Hopefully, she will.

Very exciting. For me, anyway, especially since I have shyness issues that mean making friends is hard. And she says her friends are not in Boise, they're her high school friends, so this'll be good for both of us.

The most annoying sound is coming into my apartment right now. The renovations downstairs are causing a squeaky, shrill drill noise to come up and give me a headache. And my boyfriend's just sleeping through it.

Anyway, I scrapped my original plans for the veil. After a lot of research on-line, I decided to go with the rose trellis lace pattern, in a vague trapezoidal shape. Hopefully, I can block the bottom edge into a soft curve, while not having too much knitted fabric gathered up into the hair comb. (That's why I can't just knit a rectangle. I don't want to spend all that time knitting a pattern that's just going to get eaten up in gathers.) Hopefully, I won't rip this out, but if nothing else, I can always just go buy two yards of tulle and make my veil out of that. (The smart thing would have been to do that at the beginning.)

I did make a mistake in this (see the pretty circle on the picture?) I'm not quite sure what I did, but it looked like I had done one double yarn over instead of two YOs separated by a decrease. I tried to drop the stitch and fix it, but... it's not perfect. I made a M1 increase the next row so everything still worked, but I can live with this, I think (of course, I said the same thing about the first version, and where is it now?)

Sock Problems

After losing one of my Falling Leaves socks, I finally found them and washed them. Yesterday, I was going to wear them, pulled the first one on, and noticed a hole. My first thought was "Wow, that's a really big yarn over. I didn't know there were any that big." Yeah, there was a hole. Big enough to stick a finger through.

See? Big hole. And as much as I love and admire the Yarn Harlot, I can't adhere to her darning principle. I spent too much time knitting on these just throw them away. I have to at least try to fix them. So, yarn in hand, I caught the stitches that had dropped a loop, and sewed it up. I'd include a tutorial type thing, but, really, there are better ones out there. What works for me is not necessarily something to be emulated.

But still, the big hole is gone now. Whether it will reappear in the next wash is yet to be determined.
And it's not perfect, but really, very little of what I do ever is. And it's just a sock. No one is going to be looking at my socks.

(For the record, I did put these socks in a lingerie bag before washing, so, for me, extreme care was taken. If another hole shows up, however, these socks will probably be either frogged or thrown away.)

Frickin' doily

I'm a bit later than normal with today's post, but I have a very good reason. I was trying to finish up the doily. I only had about five rows left this morning, but, of course, those five rows are the longest. So it took me a while.

Pattern: Charlotte from www.yarnover.net

Needles: Size 3 (3.25 mm)

Yarn: Knitpicks Palette in Black (or maybe coal. Were I a responsible blogger, I'd look it up. )

Comments: It's not as big as I had hoped, but it's at least big enough to cover part of the alter, so it's all good. If you plan on making this yourself, there's a mistake in the pattern on row 11. I'll e-mail the lady who runs the page and see if she wants to change it.

Why black? As far as I know, there isn't any sort of Buddhist symbolism with the color, but 1) Wayward Boyfriend likes black and 2) I was wanting to use yarn from my stash for this. I didn't want to go any higher than fingering weight. All my other colors I have half-assed plans for, so black was chosen. Simple as that.

What's really sad about this is that I still have a fair amount of yarn left over, and am contemplating making more doilies. I hate doilies. There's absolutely no reason for me to want to knit more of them, yet, here I am.

Ack!!

Only 6 days until Valentine's Day! I have to knit now. Faster, better, etc. I have a plan for my Wayward Boyfriend. Since he's Buddhist, I want to set him up a little altar in our bedroom for him to meditate at. Taking my cue from Franklin, I'm knitting him a doily as an alter cloth. Luckily, that's all I need to do. And doilies are small, right? (we're just glossing over the fact that the first doily I tried to make for this purpose kicked my ass.

The World's Most Boring Scarf is finished! Just need to weave in a couple of ends and wash it.

Stats: Lionbrand Wool-Ease in black, knit on size 7 needles. Cast on 40 sts, knit in 1x1 rib until it's longer than I am tall, ask my WB if it's long enough, bind off. Cast on three new projects to celebrate.

I may be able to knit lace after all...

It hasn't happened yet, but the wedding veil will be ripped shortly. I wasn't happy with it, and I used the online shawl calculator, and found out I've only knit less than ten percent, so I can rip that no problem. Rip it, wind the yarn, and put it aside for a little bit. I'm going to start another lace project before I get back to that, just so I have some lace experience under my belt before my wedding veil.

The first Fools Rush sock is done. Every girl needs a pretty pink sock. When the other sock is finished, I'll post all my modifications and stats.

What I've learned this week

In lieu of any new and exciting projects (or considerable progress on the old ones), I composed a mental list of what I've learned this week about myself and knitting. The mental list will be transcribed here, for your amusement.

1. I will never be a bonefide lace knitter.
It's not that I can't knit lace. I've never really had any problem with the knitting. I just have such an intense dislike of frogging that mistakes are likely never to be corrected. Case in point: my wedding veil. I know, if you're going to obsess about the perfection of anything, it should be the wedding veil. But somewhere down the line, it looks like I forgot some increases at the end, so the edges of the veil aren't as symmetrical as originally planned. As long as it keeps working out, though, I'll keep knitting.

2. Never bring hand knit accessories on a night out. My favorite pair of gloves, my Broadstreet mitts, were forgotten after a few drinks at a strip club. Sad, really. I'll order some yarn for a new pair soon.

3. My boyfriend approaches my knitting like he views the wedding planning. Smile and nod, Rhiannon will figure it all out.

I thought this list was longer, but it'll have to do.

Triumph of the Veil

Get it? Like Triumph of the Will? Oh, never mind.

As promised, the triumphant picture of the 30-odd rows of the veil:

Did I say triumphant? I meant bad. A bad picture of the veil. But at least you can see the pattern developing. Most of the yarn is still wet, so I don't know when I'll be able to knit on it more.

On a completely unrelated note, I finally told my boyfriend about this blog. He wasn't surprised. Then I asked him if I was talking about knitting less (on the theory that with the Internet to talk to about it, maybe I wasn't bothering him as much). He just started laughing. So I'm thinking that's a no. Then the next day, I had him leaning over my shoulder while I talked about color combinations for a sweater I want to make. So, that's definately a no. More details on the sweater if it actually develops. I'm starting to feel bad that I keep talking about things that never come to fruition.

Triumph replaced by idiocy

I had hoped to start today's post with a triumphant picture of the 30-odd rows I have knit on my wedding veil. (It's coming out beautifully, by the way.) Sadly enough, that's not going to happen. Why? I spilled Coke on my wedding veil. Let me repeat that: I spilled coke on my wedding veil. And the yarn to make it. I don't think any permanent damage has been made, but it's now soaking in the bathroom sink, so no picture. The funny thing is, I had just moved it so my boyfriend couldn't step on it in his slippered feet. And then I proceeded to pour coke on it. There will be a triumphant picture tomorrow. Jesus Christ, as if the yarn wasn't tangled enough.

I was going to wait until these were done before posting a picture (how many partially completed socks does the blogworld need, anyway), but, without the veil, I got nothin' else.

The cuff, and about five rows, on my Fools Rush socks. I like 'em.
They're pretty.