Really really in trouble.
By the way, I can’t get the pic to straighten out. It’s straight on my computer, but WordPress is rotating it. Sorry.
Category Archives: Crafts
2012 ravellenics day 3
2012 ravellenics day 2
Here’s tonight’s progress. I’m a little disappointed, but I only had about 2-3 hours of interrupted time, so I’ll take it.
I knit rows 5-14. I managed to memorize the basic pattern, so now I only need to pay attention to when I’m on a non-standard row. I also figured out it takes roughly 8 minutes to knit a standard row. There also seem to be roughly 8 rows per inch. If I’m supposed to work in pattern until it reaches 66″, then if my math is correct I need to work 528 rows. At 10 minutes per row (padding for cable rows and dropped stitch time) that means 5280 minutes, or 88 hours of knitting time.
514 rows remain, so that’s 5140 minutes or 85.75 hrs. Divide that by the 15 days remaining, and that means I need to knit 5.75 hours per day to finish on time.
UM….😳
Something tells me I’m not gonna make it!
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2012 ravellenics day 1
My project for the KO/Ravellenics is Jeanie from the Winter 2007 Knitty. I’ve loved it ever since, and had even bought the yarn from my cousin’s (defunct) shop back in ’07. And it’s been sitting in my stash ever since.
Last night I only had about 2 hours to knit while I watched a recording of the opening ceremonies. I managed to wind the yarn, color code my charts, work my favorite provisional cast on and knit 4 rows. Doesn’t seem like much unfortunately.
It’s 137 sts with sock weight yarn, though, and it’s got patterning on both sides…which means there’s no relaxing “knit back” rows. The payoff will be in the end when I have a gorgeous reversible shawl…now I just need to get it knit!
This project is entered in the Shawl event, the Cable event, and also the Stash event (marinating more than 1 year). I’m playing for Team Canada in Ravelry. I know I said I wasn’t going to join…but I caved yesterday afternoon and added myself. Are you participating this year?
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modesty required
I finished Minnie’s dress- a quick single-crochet bodice with scalloped skirt- but have decided that she needs a pair of panties for underneath. I’m going to work on them tomorrow then give her back to Henri. 🙂
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dressing miss minnie
I’ve got a sock well underway, as well as all the assorted parts that will become a dragon.
But tonight’s knitting has been preempted by the arrival of a naked Minnie in our house, and Henri’s repeated requests that I make her a dress.
Ok.
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so far, no sweater
Last Friday (the date of my last post) I did work on my Flugel.
This is the beginning of grafting the underarms (lower sleeve edge from cuff to armpit). Since the cast-on method was to use the backwards-loop co, I had an invisible row of loops waiting for me to use. I slid half of each loop of the front’s underarm sts onto a needle, pretending it was one leg of a live stitch. I did the same thing on the back’s underarm, then used matching yarn to graft the fake “live” sts together.
Just as I’d stopped the stripe pattern on the shoulders and changed to white once I was at the full length, so none of my stripes would wrap around the body and/or be involved in the grafting, here I’d made sure that even though my first row of knitting would be in the gold ribbon, I did the cast-on for the sleeves in the navy. That continued the line from the body and left me with the ability to use the more “normal” yarn for the grafting.
This is the complete underarm after being grafted; cuff-edge to the right, and the join to the body stripes on the left.
It worked really well, and I was able to get both sides done.
On Saturday I picked up sts around the neckline and started knitting the neckband.
I’ll admit, I got distracted.
I put it aside Saturday afternoon because I had to pack up all our school stuff to bring up north with us. As per our usual tradition, on the weekend before our final (or midterm) exam, Yannick and I leave the kids at home with my inlaws or parents, and we go up north to peace and quiet to study.
We spent the weekend up there and got a lot of work done. I only brought a sock-in-progress with me for easy car knitting, and truly didn’t knit at all beyond the car rides.
Last night I finished the neckband (I’d added a few extra rows) and bound off. Technically that means that Flugel is finished (but for weaving in ends) but I don’t like the unfinished cuff edges and will be adding some ribbing.
But not yet. A) I have to concentrate on studying for Sunday morning’s exam, and B) I have a new knitting priority.
😛
Jakob is turning 5 in May, and we’re having his party before his birthday so I can have my surgery and know everything is done (exam, school, party, etc). He’s NUTS for How To Train Your Dragon and since last year has been telling me that he wants a Hiccup & Toothless cake. (The main viking kid and dragon). The only problem is that we’re having his party at a location that doesn’t allow ANY outside food being brought in, which means I can’t make his cake. (And we’re not doing a separate family party to make baking one worthwhile).
They DO have themed cakes, and have a HTTYD one, so he’ll be getting Toothless & Hiccup on his cake after all, but I wanted to make him something.
I found the PERFECT PATTERN.
This (above) is Toothless. This (below) is the Toothless knitting pattern, plus pipe cleaners and craft eyes to make the “spruced up” version of the pattern.
So knitting a dragon and studying for a final exam, that’s how my week will look. How about yours?
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almost a sweater
Last night I sat down to start putting my sweater pieces together.
The original pattern has the body (a tube with waist shaping) knit in the round to where the batwing sleeves start, then you work flat, increasing on both sides every row. Finally the left and right shoulders are worked separately, with stair-step bind-offs worked from the sleeve’s cuff edge to the neckline.
First of all, I didn’t want a seam at the neck-to-cuff line above or below the arm. Therefore when I was doing the knitting, instead of binding off 9 sts at the beginning of each rs (or ws) row, I worked the row in short rows, finishing with one row back across, picking up the wrapped stitches. That left me live sts all the way from the neck to the cuff edge of each arm.
Usually when I’m doing a sweater, I’ll work a 3-needle Bind-Off on those live sts because I like the stability it gives the structure of the sweater. In this case I really didn’t want a thick ridge down the whole length of the sleeve, so I grafted it closed.
Here you can see the sleeve graft in progress. Instead of fighting to keep an even tension as I went, I used a long strand of yarn and worked the Kitchener stitch loosely on a few inches’ worth of stitches, then used my darning needle tip to catch the new stitches and snug them up to match the surrounding tension. Then I’d work another few inches, and snug it up…etc.
The next step in the pattern would be to seam the underneath of the sleeves. But in my case, because my sides were open, I wanted to close those first so I’d have a clear end point when seaming the sleeves.
It took me 2 tries until I got the stripes lining up perfectly, but now they’re right on track. Lookit that seam! (Your answer should be, “what seam”?) 😛
I stopped mid-mattress stitch to go to bed, so tonight I hope to get more done, if my school work allows. I’ll try to seam both sides, then graft the underside of the sleeves, even those they aren’t live. The backwards-loop cast-on used to increase at the underarm should be flexible enough to disappear into the grafting without too much bulk underneath.
Here’s a view of one completely grafted shoulder. That’s the top (with the lower neckline) at the top, and the back at the bottom. This would be the left sleeve, and the wide white area has my grafted seam down the middle; so that white part would sit atop my shoulders and run down to the end of the sleeve.
The sleeves aren’t supposed to have cuffs but I’m 99% sure I will be adding 1×1 ribbing in white, just like the neckband and lower band. I’m going to try it on first, though, the only thing that would stop me would be if the sleeves were already too long.
And then my sweater will be complete!
And that’s a good thing!
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not wearable yet
I was really hoping to wear my new sweater to Guild tonight. I knit on it during the boys’ nap on Friday (we were home ‘cus the daycare was closed). I knit on it on Saturday while hanging out at Colette’s while Maaike learned how to use her new loom. I knit on it on Sunday while watching No Strings Attached with Yannick, and I knit on it all day yesterday while catching up on Alcatraz, Once Upon A Time, CSI and New Girl. At 11:30pm I was forced to admit that unless I were to take today off from work (not an option), I would not be wearing a new sweater (or at least, one that *I* knit) tonight.
The front is complete. It’s got the live sts from the whole sleeve length, front neck, and other sleeve all on one needle which is why it looks all bunched.
The back is about 17 rows away from starting to finish the sleeves.
I’m keeping the arm/shoulder sts live instead of binding them off, stair-step fashion, as per the pattern. Instead I will graft them later. I’m also going to graft the underside of the sleeves after I seam the body (which was supposed to be seamless).
Then I’ll have the neck ribbing to do, and I’ll probably add at least an inch of ribbed cuff to the sleeves to give them a more finished look.
I would have had an extra hour of knitting time last night, but I took a break and after Yannick installed them, together we filled in:
My Nail Polish Racks! 😀
They arrived! They were my Valentine’s Day/upcoming birthday present from Yannick, and I’m so happy! The racks are clear but he bought some white…um…stuff (a hard non-porous material they make cutting boards out of) and had it cut to size to put behind them, partially to make the polish stand out, and also for support, ‘cus the pre-drilled holes in the racks didn’t align with where our studs are, and I’m not putting glass bottles on the wall if they’re not secure! 😛
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i think i like it
What do you think? I’m kind of annoyed that the navy yarn is reading so black vs the blue-toned ribbon, but I have no other yarn to swap and I’m just going with it. If it fades at all in the wash it’ll be fine, and if it doesn’t, well, it’s my sweater and it’s staying this way.
ps No more zombie hands!
Since I change polish about every 2 days there have been a few manicures in between, but they were boring. Look- bright and sparkly! Also, my fingerless mitts are making an appearance! (Edgewood? Something or other, from Knitty, about 3 years ago).
jeloca.com 