Caryn's Knits

Friday, September 22, 2006

Argh!

I hate, hate, hate Kitchener Stitch.

I can do fancy lacework, cables out my ying yang, all that kinda stuff.

Kitchener just defeats me.

Instead of being relaxed, like knitting usually makes me, I'm tense, irritable, and yelling at my cat whenever he comes near me.

I think I shall put it away, and get back to it next week.

The Eris is now on hold, apparently.

3 hours on 12 stitches. Yeah, I'm done for now.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

I don't need another project... Do I?

Man, I'm tempted.

Laura has designed beautiful cardigan in Misti Alpaca Chunky, for Lettuce Knit. She works there, so the pattern will only be available at the store, I believe. (Scroll down near the bottom of the entry I've linked to for a picture)

I really don't need another project right now. But I picked up (as in held, not bought) some Misti Alpaca Chunky at Romni Wools last week, and I spent a good 10 minutes just fondling it, wondering what I could make out of it. It's wonderfully soft. And I love the cardigan - it's exactly the kinda of thing I like to have at my desk at work, for when I get cold.

And it should knit up quickly, seeing how it's a chunky wool.

But I don't need another project, right?

Monday, September 18, 2006

I think it may work...

The Eris is now far enough along to try it on, to check for sizing.

And...



I believe it just may work!

Sure, it's a little bit snug, but I think it's dressy enough that being a little snug is okay - it's certainly not tight enough to be uncomfortable. It'll be a nice sweater that I can wear to work in the middle of winter, when the office is freezing. *g*

I am going to leave the lifeline in until the arms are done, however, just in case it does end up uncomfortably tight across the shoulders.

Now I just have to do the final 3/4 of the hem, and then the sleeves... But, progress!

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

That was a little steep!

I've added the Pea Pod Baby Set to the "waiting in the wings" sidebar, since I managed to pick up some yarn for it finally.

I'm making it for my niece, and the one year size (she'll be 10 months at Christmas, so I figured 1 year was the way to go) calls for 7 balls of Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere. I've had trouble finding it - Mary's Yarns in Unionville didn't have it, Lettuce Knit didn't have it, and Knitomatic didn't have it. I have seen Debbie Bliss' Cahmerino, however, and that generally ran $9-$10 dollars per 50 grams ball. I figured the cotton and cashmere'd be a little cheaper than merino and cashmere, say $6 or $7 for a 50g ball, making a it a little expensive for a one year old, but not totally outrageous, right?

Hah!

I finally found some, down at Romni Wools. Their prices are generally pretty good, but... wait for it... the stuff was $15 a ball! Whoever wrote the pattern was expecting me to pay upwards of $100 on materials for a sweater for a one year old. Call me crazy, but I think that's just a little insane.

So I looked around the store for a bit, and I came up with this...


It's a very pretty, very soft 100% merino wool in a lovely purple shade, and cost me about $9 a ball, but I only needed 6 balls of it. That is much better. I love my niece, but I do have something of a practical side, too.

Of course, with my luck, she'll turn out to be allergic to wool...

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Knit, knit, knit

I'm just circling round and round and round between three projects, now. I guess it keeps me from getting bored. *g*

First up, the Eris. I've finished the round and round and round and round straight knitting bit (yay!), and I'm about to start the short row shaping. At least the dull part is over, right?

The picture's a little dark, since I took it without the flash, but the sweater's comin' along. I'm still afraid it's gonna be too small, though. The white line of crochet cotton's my lifeline, so I can rip it back to where the difference between the two sizes begins without too much trouble, if I do decide to rip it back. Of course, my older sister's a little smaller than me, so I may just give it to her for Christmas, instead.

I'm also hoping that the pookiness around the collar can be solved with blocking.

I've also put in a fair bit of work on my Irish Diamond Shawl, too. I think because it's cooling down, and it's about the time I wanted to start wearing it, I'm motivated to work on it again.



I've got another set of small diamond to do before the pattern changes to a different motif. I've already got over 500 stitches on the needles, and I have another 250 stitches or so to add, 8 stitches every second row. This makes it all of 40% done. Finishing may take me a while, but it would be nice if I could actually use it out at Mike's this fall.

Finally, I've been doing more work on the Desert Sun shawl, when I don't feel like doing either of the other two. That means it got about 4 rows done this week. I did enough to finish of the ball of wool I was using, and wind up (and attach) the next skein, and then I put it down again.


This one's going really, really slow. I think it's because the yarn is so fuzzy and undefined - it makes it hard to see the pattern, hard to see how it will look when done. I hope it's okay after blocking, but there may be all kinds of mistakes in there that I didn't see as I was going along because I couldn't see any pattern. I'm no longer convinced this one's gonna look all that good, so it's hard to get motivated to work on it...

Saturday, September 02, 2006

FO: Soleil!

Finally finished the Soleil! Yay! Specs:
Yarn: Elann's Sonata, in Burgundy Rose, 6 balls. (The colour's a little darker than in the photo)
Needles: US 6
Time: it took me about 4 weeks to do the sweater, and then another 3 weeks to get round to finishing it. Sigh.

The biggest lesson learned here is to trust the designer, at least a little. After finishing knitting the sweater, I was certain it was too big, that it would gape horribly around the armholes. I was dicouraged enough that I didn't bother to do the row of crochet around the edges, and just put it aside. Well, when I got around to finishing it up, I did two rows of crochet around the armhole edges, and it fit just fine. So, if I'd just kept going when I finished the knitting I would have had a pretty little sweater to wear for the last part of the summer. Oh, well.

I really like the lace around the bottom. The little bit of waist shaping it has is another nice touch - makes for a really nice fit to the top.

I need to figure out how to take better pictures of the finished items, though. I actually managed to use the remote for my camera to get this one, but the angle's a little wonky. It's much easier to take pictures of things when I'm not wearing them. *g*