stupid effin' sweater...

so it's now officially a month and i'm still plugging away on this damnable thing. i probably shouldn't say that - or even think it, for that matter - since it's gonna be my mom's christmas present and what if i put some "like water for chocolate" mojo on the thing? still, i really am tired of this project and i wish i could pick another up but my nature dictates that i only work on one thing at a time so i'm pretty much stuck.

i would actually be done with this thing had i not run out of yarn ONE INCH BEFORE FINISHING THE LAST SLEEVE. so i had to order more online and had to set it aside until the skein came but when i did, i actually stopped to scrutinize the sleeves and i realized that i never did decrease every inch from the armpit like i'm supposed to so it's pretty damned shapeless and even if i pretended i meant to do it, the cuffs are just too wide for regular and too narrow for bell.

so what to do? any other non-knitter would never know the difference. but i would. and since it's for my mom and since it's the first time she's asked for something knitted from me, i feel it ought to be close to perfection. but i've been at this for far too long and it's getting to be more a chore than a pleasure.

sigh.

i know what i'm gonna end up doing and i'm just not looking forward to it...

jogless stripes

Jogless Stripes: When knitting stripes in the round, one of the downfalls is the jump in color where one round transitions to the next. Knit one round in the new color. At the beginning of the next round, insert the right needle tip into the left leg of the stitch in the row below the first stitch of the round (old color stitch) and place this stitch on the left-hand needle (figure 1). it this stitch together with the first stitch of the next round to raise the color of the previous round to the height of the new round (figure 2). Do this at the beginning of every round that involves a color change.

Figure 1

Figure 2

At the beginning of the next round, insert the right needle tip into the left leg of the stitch in the row below the first stitch of the round (old color stitch) and place this stitch on the left-hand needle (figure 1). it this stitch together with the first stitch of the next round to raise the color of the previous round to the height of the new round (figure 2). Do this at the beginning of every round that involves a color change.

—from Weekend Hats

covington part deux

as posted on the anthropologie group forum:

So I decided to add sleeves - not necessarily because of my “fat” arms; thanks for the vote of confidence, tricotgirl and lovetorun! - but so I can have more options with looks. I liked it, especially with JSSBO, then I soaked and lightly blocked it. And…AHAHAHAHAHAHA!

It ended up a dress!

I did like it that way, but I worried about its wearability (you know, sitting on it and such), so I threw it in the dryer on medium heat for 8 minutes and…

I know the picture doesn’t show the true contrast, but I swear it shrunk a good 5-6 inches. I know cotton is magic, but didn’t realize how magic.

So I guess in the end, it’s become my dual purpose FO - block it for a dress or dry it for a top.

covington can kiss my purple starfish

what a PITA this project was.  i'm not really feeling in the ranting mood so here are the highlights of suckage in as spare of prose as i can manage:

1. missed gauge 3 times and had to frog 3 lace repeats (or 21 rounds or ~2100 stitches) all 3 times before i could even get out the gate.
2. covington yarn - ah, what a roller coaster ride it was! first, you were smooth and silky and easy to work with, especially since you were cotton and i usually loathe that fiber. but then you started to split like crazy. and you decided you hated my blunt bamboo circs. and then you kept puffing up linty things that made my nose itch and run.  and you developed a strong antipathy for k2tog, which was the majority of this pattern. now, alas, you are persona non grata in my book.  never again, covington.  never again!
3. JSSBO - another love/hate relationship.  i love the look of you, the flexibility and stretchiness of you.  but what the hell with reverse YOs?  why?!  WHY?!  because reverse YOs, coupled with splitty yarn and blunt bamboos equal an experience akin to paper cuts bathed in alcohol.  i persevered but binding off with you 4 times for this project was not pretty.

i shall take pictures of the FO and post here at a later date.  or perhaps just on my project page on rav since no one i know from my knitting community reads this blog anyway.  don't get me wrong, gentle reader: i ended up loving the garment, even if it's not really my color.  and i will probably rock the look for multiple seasons because it's a great layering piece. so i should probably show it off.  i'm just monthly and bloaty and i think on the road to a summer cold-y right now, and since i don't have good luck with photos in the first place, i wouldn't hold my breath for a pictorial anytime soon.

ravelry to the rescue - short rows

short rows have always and probably will continue to befuddle me.  but every seasoned knitter i know swears by them, citing short rows as the liberator/savior from shapeless knits.  unfortunately for me, reading about them and poring over diagrams and even watching youtube videos just haven't helped.  i can't seem to wrap my mind around them - pun intended, for all you knitters out there.  ;p

so when i posted another cry for help for my current WIP, and when good ol' schrouderknits responded with her amazing clarity, i knew i had to repost our entire convo once again for when i'm really ready to tackle short rows for real.

ME: 
I am in the process of knitting Katy Did It in the round as per askaar’s mods. I have split for front and back and, after having finished and bound off the front, am realizing that I perhaps want some short row action on the back so I won’t be garroted.

If I’m correct in my assumption and I could stand to do some short rows, how many sets do you think I need to work? Would 2 or 3 do the trick?

Also, I have researched extensively on how to do short rows and some instructions have you increasing as you do your wrap and turns - I don’t exactly know why this is necessary and am wondering if I need to do so in this case.

And finally, if I do need several sets of short rows, how many stitches past the wrapped stitch do I work before turning again?

Of course, if you all say that I don’t need short rows at all and that the front neckline will drape nicely and not cut my throat off, then maybe I can once again put off understanding short rows for another day. ;p

SCHROUDERKNITS:

This sweater’s neckline is not shaped at all. That works because it’s a boatneck, ie the neckline is much wider than usual which is left open when you sew your shoulder seams together, theoretically leaving enough room to get your head through it. Usually it is straight across on the back of the neck, but because of one’s anatomy, the front droops a bit under the neck so it doesn’t end up choking you as long as you BO loosely enough.

This wouldn’t be the type of neckline I would short-row and this st patt does not lend itself well to short-rowing. That’s 2 strikes against short-rowing, so I’d look for other options.

eta - re the bit about short-rowing referring to “increasing” - they’re not talking about inc’ing the total # of sts, they’re talking about working across more and more of the sts in the row. EG if you had 100 sts across the row and were short-rowing in 10 st increments, starting with 10, then you’d knit across 10, leaving 90 sts unworked, turn and purl back 10. Then you’d knit across 20 sts, leaving only 80 unworked, turn and purl back the 20. Then you’d knit across 30, leaving only 70 unworked, and so on, thus “increasing” the # of sts you’re working across in each set, but the # of unworked sts “decreases” at the same time, leaving you with the same # of sts you always had. HTH -

If the front is too high for your comfort and/or you find the wide neckline falling off a shoulder, I would advise undoing shoulder seams, ripping the front back down ~3”, then BO the front neck section, perhaps ~8” wide, then cont working on each side up straight to make a rectangular neck “hole”.

ME:
Huzzah for not short rowing! Procrastination wins again! Although, after your explanation of “increasing”, I may just be one step closer to fully comprehending the beast that is short rows.

(For future reference, how does one decide how many stitch increments to short row? In your example, you say 10 stitch increments; is there a ratio/magic number to figuring this out?)

Am in the process of knitting up the back and will update on whether, once connected, the front is too high and will need ripping back. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it won’t.

SCHROUDERKNITS:

I pulled 10 sts out of my, uh, hat!

You choose the # based on the # of inches more you want x your row gauge, then divided over the # of sts with which you’re working. In the example I was giving, I was only adding short rows at one end, thus would end up with a triangular wedge that was tall at the right edge of the fabric and tapered down at the left end to a point. By dividing that 100 sts into 10 st increments, that adds 20 rows to the right edge and only 2 rows at the left edge. For a row gauge of 7 rpi, that would be almost 3” on the right edge, 1/3” on the left. If I was using thin yarn at 10 rows per inch, then that’s only 2” tall, and so forth.

If you’re following a patt and it gives you specifics on short-rowing, draw some horizontal lines on a piece of paper, the longest one showing the full width of a row, then each subsequent one working only over part of it is rough approximation of the proportions to show you the general shape the short rows will give, then adding completely long lines again at the top to cover all the ups and downs. That will smooth out what otherwise looks like stairsteps, so you’ll see where the fabric slopes up and then down again, or down and then up, or however it’s shaped.

7 down and counting - layering shrug complete

so i've been joining all kinds of groups on ravelry, realizing in the process that i am a social beast online (as opposed to my oft-professed misanthropy). one of the groups i joined is called IntSweMoDo (international sweater-a-month dodecathon) and the expectation is that you knit 12 tops/sweaters within the year. apparently this is a very large and popular group, boasting over 1000 members, and i'd always seen the "intswemodo" tags on people's projects and wondered if i, too, could be a cool kid.

well, not only was joining the group painless, i found out that, although i joined the bandwagon a bit late (7 months into the year), i'd inadvertently already knitted 6 tops/sweaters on my own. my current project, although not technically one or the other, apparently counts and i just finished it today and thus the title of today's post.

it was a bit of a pain because it was lace and i don't do lace because i'm just too damned impatient and i had to frog and reknit multiple parts multiple times, but i'm cautiously optimistic about the outcome of this project. i mean, i love the yarn, i love the color combo (although, with what i had on hand, it's more UCLA than CAL), and i love the overall weight and drape of it. i just don't know if i like how it looks in the front. i had shorted out the back (doing one less pattern repeat, or one set of the two-leaf panel, for the non-knitters out there) because i didn't relish the thought of something baggy and saggy.

i like the way the back looks; it's the perfect ease for me and the usual kind of clothes i wear.

but by shorting the repeats for the back, i also unthinkingly shorted it for the front and now it looks a bit scant.

if only i didn't have boobs. -_-

anyhoo, it's soaking in eucalan right now and i am prepared to give it an aggressive blocking. the yarn is 65% cotton and 35% milk fiber so i hope it can be bullied into stretching and growing a bit. also, i want the collar and sleeve to have these cute little curvy points, so again, a vigorous blocking is in order. /keeping fingers crossed.

layering shrug - why sideways construction confounds me

so i thought i was almost done with this sucker. after 7.5 repeats of the back pattern, it looked like it would fit and be okay for me to start the other sleeve. upon questioning other ravelers, however, i was assured that the pattern calls for it to fall loosely and that i needed to go the whole nine yards and knit 9.5 repeats. sigh. not that the pattern is hard - in fact, i have it burned in my brain - but sighing because i'm so ADD with knitting and i already have other projects lined up but i'm a one-project-at-a-time kinda gal and i just want to be DONE with his one so i can move on to the next, a sweet little number that looks like this:

i know, whinge, whinge. bitch, bitch. at least it's summer break and i have all this time to knit at all, right? you're right, gentle reader. thanks for the sanity slap.

in other news - i finally got all the kinks in the blog/rav connection fixed. aside from some minor stylistic adjustments, i think i'm satisfied with what i've wrought and now can focus on posting instead of designing.

i think. -_-

but maybe a progress bar for my current project...or a quote of the week...or a book list...

the sweater saga part two - clarity

Schrouderknits, aka Joan, is an amazing wealth of information, an incredibly patient instructor, and an overall beautiful human being.

ME:
Aha! Everything just clicked! Schrouderknits’ instructions coupled with Wusel’s link have given me a “Eureka!” moment. I think I am ready to begin my adventure.

But just so I’m clear: if I follow Schrouderknits' instructions, I would not have to knit short rows but I would have to pick up stitches to create the turtleneck afterward, correct? And if I wanted to start with the turtleneck, then I’d have to work short rows before I work the raglan?

SCHROUDERKNITS:

Correct, if you shape for a crew neck, you won’t need to do short-row shaping.

Yes, you could knit the collar first and then do the short-rowing to simulate the same crew neck cut-out. The first problem would be to decide just how many sts you want for your T-neck. Then you’d have to apportion them out to the various segments, perhaps 40-10-40-10%, ie 40% each for front and back, 10% for sleeves, then take 1 off each segment to denote it as the seam st.

Then you’d start by working back and forth all but the 40% that is the front. Add 1 more st at the end of every row until you’ve done enough rows to = ~3” more on the back, and then work all the way around.

I much prefer to do any neck treatments at the end most of the time (the lone hold-out is if the patterning won’t blend well at the going down/going up junction) because I can tweak so many things:

 EG what if your CO at beginning of T-neck is too tight to get over your head? If my BO is too tight, I just have to rip it back and go again more loosely.  EG what if I’m running low on yarn? With T-neck done last I can make it an inch shorter.  EG what if I realize I don’t really want a T-neck after all - just too hot. I can rip it back down to a regular crew neck border.

the sweater saga part one - desperation

entire conversation is copy/pasted directly from ravelry, my personal knitting valhalla.

ME:

So I want to design a top-down turtleneck sweater for my mom - my first ever attempt at designing - and I need a bit of hand-holding and advice. Some of my questions/concerns:

1. Do I have to work short rows to make the turtleneck sit better? This project I worked called for it, but I think it’s because it was more a cowl than a turtleneck, right?

1a. If I do have to work short rows, how exactly does one do so? I am short row-challenged. :/ I’ve read techknitter’s directions but I still don’t get it.

2. I want to put a lace or cable panel down the center to break up the stockinette and to distract from the fact that I will not do any waist shaping. ;p Any advice on how to incorporate the panel right below the turtleneck while doing the raglan increases so I don’t knit it off center?

3. Any other words of wisdom to impart before I embark upon this most perilous mission?

SCHROUDERKNITS:

So you’re making this raglan style. I would start with a conventional crew neck shaping. You can use a provisional CO if you want. The crew neck starts with the back, 2 sleeves, the 4 raglan “seam” sts and 2 sts on each side of the neck front. You work back and forth, inc’ing 8 sts on every RS row along those raglan lines (2 sts at each one), plus a st just inside each selvedge of the neck front, ergo total 10 sts every RS row.

When the front neck depth reaches ~3”, then count up the all the sts on the 2 fronts tog and subtract that from the # of sts that are across the back. You’ll CO all those sts across the neck front so the front # and back # are the same, and from thereon work in the round. You could then start your st patt across those new CO sts.

Later you’ll pick up sts around the neckline which is already lowered in the front so you won’t have to do any short-rowing. But for turtlenecks I like to change ndl sizes as I go through one. EG 2 sizes smaller than body for the first 2”, then 1 size smaller for next 2”, then end with last 2” on another size larger, ie the same size as the body. That way the upper part will be a bit looser to lay down along the outside of the fold and won’t feel so much like it’s strangling.

ME:

Oh, wow! That’s so much simpler than I’d envisioned. Thank you loads!

Two clarification points, if I may? When you say

The crew neck starts with the back, 2 sleeves, the 4 raglan “seam” sts and 2 sts on each side of the neck front.

does that mean I start off casting on 9 stitches then do all my increases? And where would I place markers to signify when to do my increases?

SCHROUDERKNITS:

You’ll need a lot more sts than that as you need some width to the back of your neck, say ~7” or so, where raglan points would end if you were making this bottom up. So 7 (or so) x your gauge. You might also need to start with a few sleeve sts since most people have some depth to the side of the neck, so perhaps an inch worth of sts for each one?

The Incredible Raglan worksheet is a great tool to help you calculate all that out. And yes, do reread Barbara’s chapter on raglans again as they should also help.

let the games begin

So this is...what?  My nth attempt at another blog?  Will this one stick, you think?  Perhaps if I gave myself some reasonable goals.  Yeah, goals.  Goals are good.  Kinda like the 365 challenge I've been doing over on Facebook.  You know, how you take a photo a day for an entire year?  How's that going, you ask?  Quite well, my friend, thanks for the support.  It *is* a bit depressing sometimes, though, when I browse my photo albums and realize I've become that entity I used to scorn: a mom with an inexhaustible propensity for taking pictures of her kids.  Sigh.  At least I've tried to be all artistic and use the rule of thirds with most of my photos and all.

Okay, before this devolves into a miasma of indulgent self-pity, how about a pictorial update of my current WIP? Because that's the goal I think I'm setting for myself: a consistently updated documentation of my current knitting projects with a dash of random commentary about life, the universe and everything. And I'm defining "consistent" as posting at least once a week. Does that seem like a reasonable goal? I think so too.

Et voila...

So I screwed the pooch on the pattern and didn't stagger the leaf repeat. But my buds on Ravelry say it won't be noticeable once it's all done and I really don't want to frog the thing because it's lace and I wouldn't even know how without messing up even more so I'm leaving it as is. Perhaps I should just work on the thing late at night when the kiddos aren't tugging at me and causing me to lose my mental mantra of ssk, k1, k1, yo, k1...