Planning and Progress

I am long overdue to make another sweater. My first, Mariah-



-was completed about five months ago. It was fairly successful, but it's rather big on me. I would have liked more shaping and a closer fit, as well as different neckline.

For a while, I've been considering making Tubey in a solid color and edging the neckline and sleeves in knit lace in a contrasting color. However, today, this gorgeous pattern caught my eye:



It's an Adrienne Vittadini pattern from the Fall 2004 Collection. I ordered the book today, and hopefully it will arrive in the mail soon.

The lovely ladies of my knitting group and I are slated to make a field trip to Flying Fingers next week. I'm very excited (the company is the best part!), but if I don't find something perfect for the sweater, I'll save my money and order yarn online. The sweater originally calls for Martina, which is a little too luxe for my college student bank account at $15/109 yards. It's also a wool/silk blend, which doesn't sit well with the vegetarian in me. I'm thinking of subbing in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted, possibly in Blackberry. Still a bit steep, but do-able. A work-intensive sweater deserves a nice yarn. I hope it's knit in the round.

Of course, I'll probably buy some some more hat yarn for D who wants, needs, has demanded, has politely asked for several hats in Manos and Noro. Girl's got good taste. I think I've made her a yarn snob by association.


As for the water bottle sling:


Another three or four cable repeats should do it for the body before I begin the strap. I'm quite happy with this project now, particularly with how the bottom came out.



The original pattern called for me to knit the bottom in garter stitch and pick up 81 stitches around the edge, which I painstakingly did for the original. Being that I absolutely abhor picking up stitches, this time, I knit a flat circle in the round until I reached the desired number of stitches, and then I knit straight up from there. In case you're curious, the formula for knitting a flat circle is to increase by eight stitches every second round. Not by four stitches, which is what I did the first time. I wound up with a conical shape of sorts, which I desperately tried to convince myself would block out to a flat circle. Finally I admitted I was wrong and frogged once again, actually looking up the technique this time.

Time to knit!

J'ai tricoté des chapeaux!

And that title would be my concession to the fact that I should probably be studying for my French test...

There's been an outpouring of hats around here, and the construction has finally clicked for me. I've always been confounded by the decreases. How soon? How many? However, there seems to be a rather simple formula. And without further ado, I present the basis for my basic beanie:

First you make a swatch and figure out gauge. From there, I cheat a little and enter my numbers into the Hat Calculator to figure out how many stitches to cast on. I don't like that method of decreasing, though. It's too bunchy for my taste. So after some ribbing, I continue in St st until the piece measures 5.5-6". Then I begin decreases as such: divide the total number of stitches by 6 and place markers to delineate these wedges. From there, k2tog directly before or directly after (whatever you fancy) each stitch marker every other row. After you complete a row of k2tog around, break the yarn, draw through the remaining stitches, fasten and weave in the ends. Voila! A hat!

Of course, this is very plain and simple, but sometimes it's necessary to showcase a particularly delicious yarn. Or, if you're D, you want plain and you want it in every color.


Here's the hat I made for her so far, with many more to come:

The stats:
Pattern: My own- basic St st with a turned up 2x1 ribbed brim.
Yarn: Filatura Di Crosa 127 Print in color 33.
Needles: Size 3 Clover Bamboo DPNs for the ribbing, Size 5 DPNs for the rest.

The hat blocking, using my favorite hat blocking method.


And being worn:

I love the randomly interspersed variegation. This yarn was very nice to work with.


For myself, I made this:

The stats:
Pattern: My own- St st with a 2x2 rib brim.
Yarn: Interlacements Alamo, a mohair, wool, nylon blend, in color 203
Needles: Size 8 Clover Bamboo DPNs.

The listing online calls this an eyelash yarn, but it's really just very fuzzy. Also, this skein never ends! I'm made the hat, half a hat that I screwed up, but has proved unfroggable and a 6 foot long Branching Out that has yet to be blocked.


Here you can see the nice, neat decreases:



And the other night, while I was not speaking to my gargantuan water bottle sling, I made myself another hat.

The stats:
Pattern: Tychus, by Brooke T. Higgins in Knitty.
Yarn: Knitpicks' Wool of the Andes in Grass and Cherry Blossom.
Needles: Size 8 Denise Interchangables



This was an extremely easy pattern and a very quick knit. It's "one size fits all," so I took took the needles down a size and increased the stitches per inch so it would fit my not-so-large head. However, I have quite a few issues with this design. Because it's double stranded garter stitch, it's really too bulky to fold the brim up. I realized this as I finished the first wedge, but I had a feeling I wouldn't like the crown, so I wanted to keep going and reknit it shorter if necessary.

And I didn't. It's not overly apparent in the picture, but there's a bit a nipple effect going on at the top.


In addition, there's a seam in the back, grafting the cast-on edge to the bound-off edge, which is rather bulky. If I was to do this again, I would cast on fewer stitches so that it wouldn't haven't to be folded up and I would use a provisional cast-on and graft the live stitches. However, this would all be contingent on whether or not I could refashion the crown. While I love the thought and the theoretical execution of the short row shaping, I don't particularly care for the third-boob-on-my-head look.


As for the water bottle sling, it's reconfigured and back on the needles. Coming along nicely. Pics to come soon.

Water Bottle Sling Woes

I'm rather frustrated. On Thursday, I swatched and cast on for the water bottle sling in Knit Wit. Instead of the recommended Koigu, I'm using Cherry Tree Hill Supersock yarn in Indian Summer. My gauge was spot on on size 2 needles.

It's coming out beautifully, and I'm really enjoying working with this yarn.


But it's way too big for a normal sized water bottle.


It's even too big for a jar of peanut butter, which I surreptitiously borrowed from my roommate to determine how big a water bottle would have to be. I'm going to have to frog and recalculate the pattern based on my own measurements. I think, while I'm at it, I'll knit the bottom from the center out and then continue up the sides from there. I really hate picking up stitches.

Also, I wanted to thank you ladies for your comments. This near instant gratification thing is pretty cool. I'm not entirely sure of blog etiquette. I know some bloggers respond in their own comments, but most don't, from those I've read. I don't want to slight anyone by seemingly ignoring them, so let me know how you handle this. I never knew so many of you have your own blogs!

A few more words about lace.

I've heard many knitters question the practicality of lace. The yarn is barely bigger than thread, the needles are itty bitty, it's most certainly not mindless work and while you have a beautiful FO, who really wears shawls? Although I wanted to tackle lace for a long time before I began my stole, it was the wearability issue that stopped me. New Year's gave me that excuse to make something special and delicate. However, in the weeks after, I found myself reaching for that stole more than any other of my handknits. I wore it like a scarf, and it had the most amazing drape. Unlike most of what I make for myself to wear in the tri-state winters, this was not about warmth, but beauty and luxury.

The evidence:

The stole and I went for ice cream at Jaxson's Ice Cream Parlor.


The stole and I went for martinis at Cafe Tu Tu Tango.
.

The stole and I went for Cuban food at Versailles. (By the way, I've heard wonderful things about Cuban food, but if you're a vegetarian, about the only thing on the menu for you to eat will be plantains in every way it can be prepared. I'm still plantained out. The coffee and pastries, though, were simply amazing.)


Huh, from these pictures, you'd think I do nothing but eat. Although I have to admit, that's not entirely inaccurate.

So. Bottom line. Lace can be made to work for you, it's not as hard as it seems and the results are worth. Give it a try.

Oh, and that ice cream?

Yeah, that was good.

NYE Stole

After receiving a digital camera for Christmas, the next logical step was to start a knitting blog. I knit all the time, but long, wordy descriptions quickly become boring. It's all about the pictures. I may have procrastinated a little... it's only two months after Christmas after all... but that means I have a backlog of knitting to hopefully keep you entertained, as I attempt to complete more schoolwork than FOs. My blog will be more technical, I imagine, rather than anecdotal. I'm not as wordy and eloquent as some of the knitting bloggers I enjoy reading. Ah, well. If nothing else, this is for me.

This past New Year's Eve, my girlfriend, D, and I had dinner reservations at the Ritz. I had this gorgeous, black lace and cream strapless gown that I originally wore to my senior prom a few years back. Being that I spent more of that night in the bathroom than the ballroom, this dress deserved another chance at a happy memory. Although it was Miami, I'm always chilly, so that's where the knitting comes in. I decided to knit myself a lace stole to throw around my shoulders.

The stats:
Pattern: Cozy, by Danielle Schoonover in Knitty.
Yarn: Jagger Spun Zephyr wool/silk
Needles: Size 4 Clove Bamboo Straights

I looked long and hard for a stitch pattern, and a stitch dictionary really would have come in handy. I actually purchased a pattern when I purchased the yarn, however I didn't realize that it was for a triangular shawl when I wanted something rectangular. In the end, I went with Cozy, which was originally written for a worsted weight yarn. I took it down to laceweight and, after extensive swatching, I cast on 133 sts for 22 pattern repeats. Also, I strung the yarn with 100 hematite beads that I knit into either end.

Now for the pictures. I would have like to make them a bit bigger, however, that distorted my templates and I'm not html savvy enough to figure it out at this point. If you're so inclined, however, you can see bigger versions of each picture by clicking on them.

First we have the stole in the midst of blocking. Because I didn't receive my yarn which I ordered online until December 6th, and I was in the midst finals, I was knitting every spare second and some that I really couldn't spare. I originally wanted to make it longer, but I completed 50 repeats, and it blocked out to approximately 20"x72", a decent sized stole if I say so myself. It was well past 2am on New Year's Eve morning by the time I finished pinning it all out.


The pattern really translated nicely to the lighter yarn.


Here's a rather stiff picture of me in the apartment lobby. We were running a little late, but I wanted a full lenth picture of me in my dress.


I look much more relaxed during dinner, sipping on one of numerous glasses of champagne that night. We were seated right under a vent, so although I was warm enough outside, I was quite chilly inside and kept my stole on the entire time. I really need to work on my photo editing skills and take care of my inevitable red-eye.


It was certainly a night that did my beautiful dress justice. Pardon me a moment of non-knitting vanity. Here's a picture of the back of my hair at the end of the night. It's one of a handful of times in my life in which I've had my hair done, and I really felt like a princess that night.



I'm quite enamoured with lace. I see many more lace projects in my near future.