Coz Knits?!

This is a little note to self that I need to take pictures of Snow White, Wheel on Fire and The Gray Flannel Purse (that is not gray, nor flannel).  I have been furiously knitting…not necessarily because of the past holiday, but just because.  Knitting is a great stress reliever…and I’ve got lots of stress hence the knitting and not posting.  So, this weekend’s task is to take pictures of these 3 projects that are recently finished.  As life would have it, I have taken pictures of the other 2 projects that I finished over the holiday…Elijah (White Elephant Style) and Piggle.  Consequently, they were also projects that were finished either in tandem or after the other 3.

 I decided to make a New Years Resolution to start more projects at once, so I can move in between them and parallelize my knitting a bit.  So far, so good.  I managed to start and almost complete Danica on a road trip up North.  I started Roam from Knitty Fall 2007, which is an endless sea of seed stitch, hence the need for more projects to jump to and fro from.  It really is turning out quite lovely…I chose to double strand laceweight yarn and the result is a beautiful limited pooling in the yarn and a lighter in weight fabric…I have to remember this trick when I want to knit something light weight that won’t feel like a sack of potatos when you put it on.

I’ve also started and almost finished (by tonight it will be finished) Penny from Knitty’s Fall 2003 issue.  Its a wonderful pattern so far, although if you intend to knit this as well, be sure to email Corinne for the latest version, as it has the errata corrected in it.  Miss BB will love it when its done.  She needs new sweaters and more sweaters very soon, because very soon, Miss BB and the rest of my family will be living in a much colder climate than we are used to.  On the same idea of keeping the family warm in the new diggs, I’ve ordered yarn and swatched for Biker Boy in the new Stitch N’ Bitch: Son of Stitch N’ Bitch.  I have not started knitting it, because I’m waiting for my new Harmony Options Needle set to arrive, because I currently don’t have the right circular needle for the job.

 Last but not least, I’ve gotten about halfway through my first official crochet project, an Irish Crochet Pin Cushion.  I saw the photo of it and couldn’t think of not attempting it.  Since I am a beginner, there isn’t anything in that pattern I haven’t done, except crochet with such a fine hook and thread.  Its taking as long as the pattern said it would and soon I will have a pin cushion that I so desperately need for all my blocking pins that I have….I probably don’t really need the pin cushion, but I’m telling myself that so that I have an excuse to crochet it!  Then I may have to make a few others for the rest of my crafty family.

I have ventured into starting two new projects at once.  One of them, I am almost finished with. 

Promptly after finishing the Emma Jacket aka most hellacious pattern to follow ever…I started Snow White.  Firstly, I love this pattern, despite the mountains of 2X2 rib.  It is cleverly designed and the pattern gets an A+ in the easy to follow / presentation area.  Consequently, I’ve had no room to bitch about it on this blog…because it is a delightful pattern to follow.  Even better, she adds these little comments into the pattern, so when you get finished with a part…say binding off…where you are wondering if that last stitch on your right needle is to be bound off or knit in pattern with the four stitches on the left needle…she explains exactly what to do, so there is no question on what is to be done.  A designer that writes patterns answering knitterly questions on the way!   Hooray!  Seriously, this was just the break I needed after the jacket.

 So, I’m knitting along on Snow White, ever so delightly when finally my copy of Son of Stitch ‘n Bitch: 45 Projects to Knit and Crochet for Men arrives in the mail from Barnes and Noble.  Instantly, I go through it and mentally note which patterns Mikey might want me to knit.  Then I have him look through the patterns and find that about one or two projects on my mental list are things he’d want me to knit, but other things I thought he wouldn’t like, he wants as well.

So, I ordered some extremely discounted yarn for the Biker Boy Sweater…that will be a Xmas gift, if I finish it in time…which I think I can do.  Then we went to Velona’s Needlework so I could get the yarn for the Wheel on Fire steering wheel cover, which I intend on finishing soon, sometime before Xmas, because he wants to use it NOW!  I already started Wheel on Fire, hopefully I can get some pictures up soon for this blog and for Ravelry…seems no one has a picture of one yet.

As for the Gray Flannel Purse, I haven’t done anything with it.  I decided that the yarn that I was substituting at first for running out of yarn, really didn’t float my boat, it doesn’t look as good as I thought it would.  So, I bought a new Cascade 220 heather in a darker heather from Knit Affair (since the original color was out when I went back to the store).  I feel better about having a darker colored purse flap rather than a lighter colored purse flap.  I don’t know why, but its easier on my eyes.  I haven’t made the progress on it that I wanted to, because I’m loving knitting Snow White too much.  I figure I’ll have a new purse by Xmas at the rate I’m going with it.

I’ve also decided that I am probably going to frog the red sox sock and reknit it, along with the second sock…because I’ll feel better about it…too many flaws.  I’m also thinking about using a different sock yarn…a yarn with some elastic in it, because it doesn’t stay up on Mikey’s foot anyhow.  Also knowing what I know now about knitting, I should have knit the sock with some negative ease…a concept I didn’t quite understand when knitting that first sock. 

 In my year of relearning to knit and more importantly learning how to knit things to fit, I’ve learned a lot about how garments are constructed and what kinds of fibers work better than others on certain objects.  Its not enough to say you know how to knit…anyone can knit, it really is quite easy…but can they knit something someone would wear?  And what is the point of buying nice yarn to knit something that will never be worn?  I don’t know about you, but I hate knitting scarves…so, I’ve been taking the time to learn what faux pas I’ve made in my knitting so that someday I can frog all the things I will never wear and make more garments that I will wear and my family will wear.  I think thats a safe assertion to make.

OK, this jacket is taking forever! This might be because I had to take a break from it for a few days…I was at the SWE conference (Society of Women Engineers), so the little time I had to knit on the plane to and from Nashville, TN…I picked a small project that I could knit a good deal of, The Gray Flannel Purse from Pursenalities.

Anyhow, I survived the steeking stage of this pattern and now I am on to finishing the seed stitch lapels. The seed stitch isn’t going as slowly as I thought, but the lapels are taking up about just as much knitting as the body section of the pattern, which I really didn’t think about before starting this project.

Remember how I said that I reread each section 10 times so I could get it right….well, I still didn’t get it right on the lapels and had to rip back and start all over. Apparently, my I-cord detail before the seed stitch was inside out because I started on the opposite side I was supposed to start on…so after I ripped back, I just decided to purl instead of knit for that part. All is well now. I have started the increasing on the second lapel, so hopefully that part will be done by the weekend and I’ll be able to add the final I-cord accent to it and I can wash and block the damn jacket. It seems like it has taken forever to knit. Quite possibly because I had to visit the frog pond on more than a few occassions, which is not entirely my fault.

I also plan to finish up the Gray Flannel purse…why I stopped the production on that is because simply, I ran out of yarn. It seems that you need two balls of Cascade 220, not one, like the pattern calls for. Although I did a bit of substituting for the yarns I was to carry with the Cascade 220 so, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. I’m hoping I can stop by the LYS sometime tomorrow so I can get that last ball, so I can finish this project this weekend as well. I am eager to finish my first felting project.

Then I think I will be on to knit Snow White. That pattern has been calling me for months! Its time to give it a go…eventhough I should probably start on Tubey first, since that yarn has been sitting in my stash longer than the Snow White yarn and is not packaged as tightly and neatly as the Snow White yarn is. At any rate, I’ve got atleast a week to him and haw about it until I have to make my decision on what to knit next. Maybe I will attempt to knit them simultaneously. Then my couch would erupt in yarn twice as much as it has been…which would make the hubby batty…it could be fun, it could be disasterous!

I finally finished Mikey’s Bob Dobbs Sweater (with a skull pattern instead of Bob). I will be posting a picture as soon as it is washed and dried…which should not be such a feat since I can stick it in a machine!

I finished my Spiral Doily from yarnover.net. Its been washed, blocked and doing its job on top of our end table for about a week. I even took a picture, which I will post this weekend with details of the adventure it was, if it kills me.

And now, instead of finishing that second Red Sox sock, I of course picked up another project on my “Future Projects” List. The Emma Jacket from Knit Picks. I am about 65% done with it now, which means I post entirely too slowly for my knitting. Or it means I don’t post enough. But, I do have some beef with this pattern…it only cost me 1.99 for it, so I probably shouldn’t have any gripes…but, it isn’t very clearly written and it took a lot of time on my part to figure out what I was supposed to do, when I was supposed to do it and how the outcome of it would be.

Of course it helped when I figured it was being knit from the bottom up…with every other seamless sweater I’ve knitted, its been top down…had to switch modes there. Once I figured that out it was almost smooth sailing. Then I had to find out on my own after increasing for 2 inches I had to add the first short row, then after I had knit 4 inches total I needed to add the second short row…all the while increasing. Then after I had knitted and increased 6.5 inches of fabric, I was to put the increasing on hold while I did the waist shaping. Then continue on with the increasing until I was done with the increasing.

I started out increasing to the total stitches I needed, then doing short rows and then having a big ‘?’ mark on my face when I got to waist shaping and yeah…total confusion ensued! After some creative math, that took about half a day to do, I figured out how I should have knit it, ripped back almost all the way for the third time (third times a charm) and knit it correctly. What could have prevented this big confusion folks? A simple sentence, something to this affect:

Continue with next steps of the pattern (short rows, etc.) while alternating knit and increase rounds until you have reached the Total Number of Body Stitches.

Would have had that magic light bulb light up in my head if that sentence was there instead of:

Alternate knit and increase rounds until you have reached the Total Number of Body Stitches.

Followed by the instructions for short rows.

Sleeves were uneventful, except for the fact that I decided to venture out and knit both sleeves at the same time, its kind of like double knitting without crossing the yarn to bring the fabric together. So, instead of having a thick sleeve, I have two sleeves knitted at once. You can find a great tutorial in this Knitty article that explains how to do that, thus ending second sock and second sleeve syndrome:

Extreme Knitting: 2 Socks in 1

Pictures were taken of that also and I will be posting about this in a more detailed post this weekend as well.

After the Emma Jacket, its off to do either Snow White or the Gray Flannel bag from “Pursenalities.” Two projects that I am extremely excited to dive into after this jacket is finished. I must say though despite all the beef, this jacket is turning out nicely so far.