Another yarn shortage. Another project in UFO limbo. The green EZ gauge-changing sweater. Got most of the way up the body and reached the end of the first skein of bulky LanaLoft. Way too soon. No way I'm going to have enough of that yarn to do the remaining couple of inches on the body, both sleeves up to the armpit, and the 4" of yoke above the armpit, where the sleeves have joined the body. I only have one more skein! I looked up their vendors on their web site, and the closest one they list is the one in Annapolis where I bought this last year. I'll have to go back and hope they have more. A different dye lot I can deal with, I can probably work it in in such a way that a change in shade would look okay. I just hope they have some.
Frustrated in that but unwilling to start another big project, I pulled out my overflowing drawer full of partial skein leftovers. Back when I was knitting with k1frog2, she had the idea of making an afghan or blanket out of knitted squares made from leftovers. If you knit them corner to corner like a dishcloth, you don't have to worry about gauge, you just start knitting and increasing, and when the sides get as long as you want the square to be, you start decreasing. Brilliant! And you can make squares from different size yarns, since they're joined together later. So I started knitting squares. Since some of the leftovers have a lot of yarn and some only a little, I decided to knit different sized squares, some 2", some 4", 6", and 8". I can join the smaller ones to make 8" blocks, then join all the blocks together to make whatever I have enough to make. A knitted blanket would be nice, that's what I'm hoping for. It's fun to be able to change from the "big" project of an 8" square to the small project of a 2" square depending on how I'm feeling at the time. A 2" square is quite quick to knit, even in sock yarn, and it's just as satisfying to finish.
Thanks for the idea, o froggy one!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
A Good Weekend
It was a good knitting weekend. First, here are some photos Peter took of my alpaca lace shawl:
I love how it turned out! The thing I liked most in the picture in the magazine was the tranlucent quality of the shawl, and it really did turn out that way! It's very lightweight, but the alpaca is much warmer than you'd think.
I also got to go to the yarn shop this weekend. A nice little place in Eldersburg called the Knitter's Nest, which K1Frog2 will recognize as the place with the good sushi restaurant next door. Do you remember that when we were there, a woman I know who is a spinner showed up? Well, last week I helped her husband, who works at the College, with a computer problem which had really stumped him and made him a little desperate. Being a nice guy and knowing the weaknesses of fiber addicts as he does, he bought me a gift certificate from the yarn shop. It made my day to get that in my mail at work.
In preparation for my visit to the yarn shop, I spent Saturday morning organizing the stash, balling up what needed to be balled up, and figuring out what I already have and what just needed a little more to go with it to make a complete project. You know, trying to buy things I actually "need" rather than just more random odds and ends that catch my eye at the moment. The startling revelation was that I have 10 projects for which I have all the materials waiting in the stash! I alternate between being stressed out that I really need to be knitting more, and being happy knowing that I will be well supplied with projects for quite some time to come. The only real dilemma is what to pick first.
But really, I've already made that decision. It's the green EZ sweater with the gauge-change decreases with which I have already regaled my faithful readers. I worked on that over the weekend and have already made my first modifications to the plan. It starts at the bottom, and a few inches into it I realized that the somewhat tight knit (to get the gauge I want) of the stockinette in the bulky yarn causes it to curl up pretty badly. I tried putting a row or two of garter stitch at the bottom edge, but wasn't happy with it until I broke down and started with a couple inches of ribbing. I don't usually make sweaters with ribbing at the bottom edge because I don't like the way it pinches in and makes it look balloon-like (not a flattering shape for some of us), so then I decided to just rib it all the way up. Normally I also don't think the clinginess of a completely ribbed sweater is flattering on me, but I think the bulky will counteract the clinginess and it'll look okay. That's the theory I'm sticking with for now. So I have a few inches of the body done.
But then in working with the stash I also unearthed a couple of UFO's which are so close to done I couldn't resist. One is the blue EZ sweater I made last year. Photos were posted. All that was left was to weave in the thread ends. And it's just the right weight for this early fall weather we are having. How could I not do it? See how much I hate finishing work? It took about 10 minutes. The other UFO is the brown Moonlight Mohair shawl made with EZ's pi are square pattern, also described previously in this blog. It was about halfway around the last row. Unfortunately, the last row has upwards of 350 stitches, I'm making a picot edging which means I'm knitting 8 stitches for every two that are bound off, and I'm pretty sure I don't have quite enough yarn to finish it. Now you see why I put it down. My one hope is that my sister-in-law, who was with me when we found the mohair for $2 a ball and bought about 3 times as much as I did, still has a ball of the brown in her stash. If she doesn't, I'll have to figure out how to fake that last 8" or so of the edging. Dang, it's going to be close.
If only every weekend could be so full of knitting!
I love how it turned out! The thing I liked most in the picture in the magazine was the tranlucent quality of the shawl, and it really did turn out that way! It's very lightweight, but the alpaca is much warmer than you'd think.
I also got to go to the yarn shop this weekend. A nice little place in Eldersburg called the Knitter's Nest, which K1Frog2 will recognize as the place with the good sushi restaurant next door. Do you remember that when we were there, a woman I know who is a spinner showed up? Well, last week I helped her husband, who works at the College, with a computer problem which had really stumped him and made him a little desperate. Being a nice guy and knowing the weaknesses of fiber addicts as he does, he bought me a gift certificate from the yarn shop. It made my day to get that in my mail at work.
In preparation for my visit to the yarn shop, I spent Saturday morning organizing the stash, balling up what needed to be balled up, and figuring out what I already have and what just needed a little more to go with it to make a complete project. You know, trying to buy things I actually "need" rather than just more random odds and ends that catch my eye at the moment. The startling revelation was that I have 10 projects for which I have all the materials waiting in the stash! I alternate between being stressed out that I really need to be knitting more, and being happy knowing that I will be well supplied with projects for quite some time to come. The only real dilemma is what to pick first.
But really, I've already made that decision. It's the green EZ sweater with the gauge-change decreases with which I have already regaled my faithful readers. I worked on that over the weekend and have already made my first modifications to the plan. It starts at the bottom, and a few inches into it I realized that the somewhat tight knit (to get the gauge I want) of the stockinette in the bulky yarn causes it to curl up pretty badly. I tried putting a row or two of garter stitch at the bottom edge, but wasn't happy with it until I broke down and started with a couple inches of ribbing. I don't usually make sweaters with ribbing at the bottom edge because I don't like the way it pinches in and makes it look balloon-like (not a flattering shape for some of us), so then I decided to just rib it all the way up. Normally I also don't think the clinginess of a completely ribbed sweater is flattering on me, but I think the bulky will counteract the clinginess and it'll look okay. That's the theory I'm sticking with for now. So I have a few inches of the body done.
But then in working with the stash I also unearthed a couple of UFO's which are so close to done I couldn't resist. One is the blue EZ sweater I made last year. Photos were posted. All that was left was to weave in the thread ends. And it's just the right weight for this early fall weather we are having. How could I not do it? See how much I hate finishing work? It took about 10 minutes. The other UFO is the brown Moonlight Mohair shawl made with EZ's pi are square pattern, also described previously in this blog. It was about halfway around the last row. Unfortunately, the last row has upwards of 350 stitches, I'm making a picot edging which means I'm knitting 8 stitches for every two that are bound off, and I'm pretty sure I don't have quite enough yarn to finish it. Now you see why I put it down. My one hope is that my sister-in-law, who was with me when we found the mohair for $2 a ball and bought about 3 times as much as I did, still has a ball of the brown in her stash. If she doesn't, I'll have to figure out how to fake that last 8" or so of the edging. Dang, it's going to be close.
If only every weekend could be so full of knitting!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
A New (School) Year
As Kate says, summer is over. Time to get back to blogging! And what a summer it has been. Vacation was had, company descended, living rooms were renovated (at least mine). I felt shell shocked by the end of it. Now, work is picking up, home life is settling down, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief.
On the knitting front, I am about 90% done with two different pairs of socks. Ooh, that's bad, more unfinished projects. The weekly knitting group at work will be starting up again next week, so I'm hoping that will take care of them. When I knit at home in the evening, I sometimes tackle ambitious projects, but at knitting group there's too much fun. If I work on anything complicated there, I'll mess it up for sure. So I almost always fall back on a good sock project.
The ambitious project for the summer was my first piece of lace knitting. A simple one, but still, it's lace. It's a half circle shawl made from lace weight alpaca in a variegated purple color which I bought at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool festival just before I moved East. It was knit from the edges in, so it started with almost 700 stitches on size 10.5 needles and 14 rows of garter stitch. Then the stitches were decreased by half -- the garter stitch is a slightly "gathered" border at the bottom edge of the shawl. The rest is mainly stockinette stitch, with a little bit of YO/k2tog fancy work to give a little pattern, and decreases to make the half circle shape. The lace effect comes mainly from the large amount of stretching out you're supposed to do in the blocking. In the end, though, the shawl is very translucent, it's almost gossamer in the magazine photo. So pretty. It's pinned out on my cutting table right for the blocking. With luck I'll finish that this weekend.
Now I'm starting on the EZ sweater that the blue Cotton-Ease sweater (pictures posted last year on this blog) was a trial run for. For this sweater I wanted to see if I could do the decreases in the EZ pattern using differences in gauge instead of actually decreasing the number of stitches. I have a bulky LanaLoft in a spring green which is working out to about 3 stitches per inch, a worsted weight called Shannon in variegated green and brown tones at 4 stitches per inch, and some medium brown Noro wool/silk in a DK or fingering weight at 7 stitches per inch. My plan is to start at the bottom with the LanaLoft and knit the body and sleeves. At the first decrease, instead of decreasing, I'll switch to the Shannon, which should decrease the size of the work by the right amount. At the second decrease I'll do an actual decrease, since I only have the three yarns, but then at the last decrease I'll switch to the Noro, which should take it down by the right amount again. I don't know, for some reason it tickles me to do this. Wish me luck!
On the knitting front, I am about 90% done with two different pairs of socks. Ooh, that's bad, more unfinished projects. The weekly knitting group at work will be starting up again next week, so I'm hoping that will take care of them. When I knit at home in the evening, I sometimes tackle ambitious projects, but at knitting group there's too much fun. If I work on anything complicated there, I'll mess it up for sure. So I almost always fall back on a good sock project.
The ambitious project for the summer was my first piece of lace knitting. A simple one, but still, it's lace. It's a half circle shawl made from lace weight alpaca in a variegated purple color which I bought at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool festival just before I moved East. It was knit from the edges in, so it started with almost 700 stitches on size 10.5 needles and 14 rows of garter stitch. Then the stitches were decreased by half -- the garter stitch is a slightly "gathered" border at the bottom edge of the shawl. The rest is mainly stockinette stitch, with a little bit of YO/k2tog fancy work to give a little pattern, and decreases to make the half circle shape. The lace effect comes mainly from the large amount of stretching out you're supposed to do in the blocking. In the end, though, the shawl is very translucent, it's almost gossamer in the magazine photo. So pretty. It's pinned out on my cutting table right for the blocking. With luck I'll finish that this weekend.
Now I'm starting on the EZ sweater that the blue Cotton-Ease sweater (pictures posted last year on this blog) was a trial run for. For this sweater I wanted to see if I could do the decreases in the EZ pattern using differences in gauge instead of actually decreasing the number of stitches. I have a bulky LanaLoft in a spring green which is working out to about 3 stitches per inch, a worsted weight called Shannon in variegated green and brown tones at 4 stitches per inch, and some medium brown Noro wool/silk in a DK or fingering weight at 7 stitches per inch. My plan is to start at the bottom with the LanaLoft and knit the body and sleeves. At the first decrease, instead of decreasing, I'll switch to the Shannon, which should decrease the size of the work by the right amount. At the second decrease I'll do an actual decrease, since I only have the three yarns, but then at the last decrease I'll switch to the Noro, which should take it down by the right amount again. I don't know, for some reason it tickles me to do this. Wish me luck!
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