20 posts tagged “wip”

The fact that, a week into my Baby Surprise Jacket, I'm not-quite-half-done instead of "done, and so is the matching bonnet"...bah. I timed myself at 17 stitches per minute, but I can't quite believe that; it doesn't feel like it takes me almost 4 seconds to make a stitch. And then on the other hand I purl faster than I knit; maybe I should do garter stitch in all-purls instead of all-knits and freak people out.

I made a row-by-row pattern spreadsheet, and I'm relying on it heavily; I tick off each row as I finish it, and that way I don't have to count every row. And now I've started the increases, so I don't have to fiddle around with moving the marker: knit to marker, M1, slip marker, K1, M1 works in both directions if you put the markers in the right place. :)

Gonna need to pick up another ball of yarn - and I'm tempted to make it two, so that I'll be able to do the bonnet. But alas, the budget...and maybe even alas, the time; I'm not sure when the baby shower is going to be, but I think it won't be long - I'm pretty sure the baby's due in late July or early August. Must also find some suitably cute buttons.

(And the sad thing is, given the price of baby clothes - I think even if I hadn't gotten the yarn with my gift certificate, it wouldn't've cost much more than a store-bought sweater...)

One sock done...

And the other sock done enough to try on.

They're going to be fraternal twins - I'd overestimated how much white yarn to leave. The finished one has about 1/3 inch of white at the top, but the one in progress has well over an inch.

I think in the long run it won't matter. And I guess if I finish it and I hate that they don't quite match, I rip it back and start over.

Okay. One problem. With this specific sock yarn and its ilk. Other sock-yarn problems apparently tend to be along the lines of '$25 for hand-dyed sock yarn, and that's only one sock's worth?' and 'It followed me home from the yarn store...' My particular Sockotta colorway is self-striping, alternating very wide orange stripes with very wide white stripes - which is the problem.

Apparently the gold standard of sock knitting is to end up with identical-twin socks instead of fraternal-twin socks. Easy enough when you're using solid-colored yarn. I would guess the trick to doing it with self-patterning yarn is to get two balls where the ends kind of match.

But the sock yarn I got...is a 100g ball, meaning I'm theoretically starting the second sock where the first sock left off. I finished the first sock somewhere in the middle of a very wide orange stripe. I need to start the next sock near the end of a very wide white stripe if they're going to match.

I think I have enough yarn that I can sacrifice the rest of this orange stripe and most of the white one. I suppose if it looks like I'm going to run out, I can cut it at a white-orange transition and splice the sacrificial bit in; at that point the stripes matching will be a moot point in favor of actually ending up with a complete second sock. But I hope it won't come down to that.

(The first sock is on my foot. It is so comfy I have no words to describe it. It's almost like not wearing a sock. On the other hand I think it's a bit ugly. Picture and write-up when it's not past my bedtime.)

I'm thinking of frogging the whole thing. Maybe.

I got past the heel and tried it on. The heel didn't feel tall enough, and even though I cast on a slightly larger size (66 stitches vs 60 - thanks to pregnancy, I have a somewhat wider foot than I did in my youth), it seemed to stretch out an awful lot across my foot. I hope it's just that the needles were distorting the sock a bit. I'm also afraid that the larger sized foot won't work with my ankles, and it won't stay up; I suppose I can duplicate-stitch some tiny elastic in it, if it comes down to that. I'm also not convinced I got everything picked back up right after the Rampaging Toddler Incident.

Gonna do a few more rows and see. Yarn Harlot told me my sock had mojo, darnit, and I'm not going to just give it up...

I started this Friday.

My orange sock...

My orange sock with Yarn Harlot's green sock...

I lost the crochet hook I was using as a cable needle substitute. I discovered today that...
a) Given that it's a 1-stitch cable, I can slip in a regular needle of the same size and use it as a cable needle substitute instead. Someone suggested a toothpick might also work - right diameter, but more grabby than the tapestry needle.

b) In the parts where the raised parts of the cabling are just twisting around each other instead of moving side-to-side, I can do those just by knitting them out-of-order. It might be possible to do a cable involving a knit-purl combo that way, but I haven't figured out how to get the yarn in the right place yet. My couple attempts at it ended up with wrapped stitches instead of cables.

Two WIP's, and a FO.

WIP: Teresa Wentzler's "Tradewinds". There will eventually be a boat in that half-circle area. My longest-running WIP - I think I started it in 2004. Heh. I will finish it before I die.

FO: Teresa Wentzler's "Knotwork Bookmark" freebie - a 'color your own' design, designed to be used with an overdyed floss. Picking the third color gave me such headaches - I'd tried to find a gold in my Floss-O-Dex that went with the overdyed and dark green, but the light green shade there was the one I ended up with. Calling it "finished" is stretching the term a little - I still need to sew the backing onto it. And now I can honestly say I've finished three TW patterns....this one, and the "Stretch" and "Futurecast" freebies. :) Fabric is light blue Jobelan; the overdyed was Six Strand Sweets "Patti Cakes".

WIP: Dragon Dreams's "Blackwork Dragon". As much as I complain about backstitch, you'd think I'd avoid blackwork like the plague, but once you find the rhythm of a particular pattern it's fun and easy. I couldn't find the Silk Bella the pattern called for - the only non-overdyed silk my LNS had was from a brand called "Splendor".

I feel a little guilty for having two WIP's - I haven't worked on Tradewinds in about a month. But I really wanted to get the fuzzyfeet done.

I've also got a series of pictures on the project I did with the Hardanger; it's getting a separate post.

I finished the Hardanger bit right after my last post - and it wasn't as intimidating as I expected it to be, once I got over that bit of trepidation sheer terror. I was also surprised how fast the finishing went - the needleweaving and doves-eyes were pretty quick to do.

I stopped working on my FuzzyFeet after finishing the first sock - not because of Second Sock Syndrome, but because I decided my chronically cold-footed sister needed a pair of her own. She got red. I finished her second sock in the car on the way to my mom's to give it to her (shhh!) and did the Kitchenering wrong on that one (shhh! again) but it shouldn't matter once it's felted - which I gave her instructions for doing. :) My second sock is on the "shape gusset" step. And looking at it, I think I need to learn to do short-row heels - my heels are just fuuuuugly.

And I keep promising pictures. I think this weekend? Someone smack me if I don't post them.

I am not even remotely getting gauge. The initial three-inch cuff should be almost 15" around, and take 14 rows. My 14 rows take about 2.5 inches and the thing is more like 11" around.

And I don't think the Lamb's Pride frogs well. I think it's a good thing I bought two skeins. Why are they telling me I need to knit worsted weight yarn to 12 stitches/4 inches? I'm getting 16, and I don't think I can knit much looser than that. I think I might need SpeedStix to get that gauge.

I've been working on Teresa Wentzler's Knotwork Bookmark, and it's both easier and more challenging than I expected.

Easier? There's only three colors, a lot of open space, no confetti...almost doesn't count as a TW at all. I started it last Friday. I'd have all the cross-stitching done, leaving some satin stitch (very fast) and backstitching (not too much, it's a small piece) to do, and I'd be done in under a week in all likelihood. Except...

Like the dragon I did last summer, the idea here is that...she's done the basic chart, but you pick the colors. This pattern, you start with one or more variegated flosses. Then you pick coordinating solids until you get up to three flosses total, and you're on your way.

I'd initially picked three variegated flosses, and I think I was colorblind that day, because they Just. Didn't. Go. Together. No way. No how. Nothing I could do with them was gonna do it, especially since I'd already had a light blue fabric in mind. So I dropped down to one - a purple-and-white pattern (Six Strand Sweets "Patti Cakes") - and stitched the center knot, figuring I'd find two solid colors to go with it.

I found one right away - a medium-value green (DMC 367). It looked great with the purple. Then I started looking for a third. For some reason my brain was fixated on gold. I tried one. Too bright. I picked it out. I tried another. Too orange, clashed with the purple. I ripped it out. I tried another one. It looked great with the green. It looked good with the purple. The combination of the three...well, it wasn't bad, but when you looked at the overall effect, the color that caught the eye was the gold, and I wanted it to be the purple - which could prove to be tricky given that the purple was fairly light. So I ripped it out - after swearing I wasn't going to pick it out again, and almost halfway done with that color. And then I came home and started going through the Floss-O-Dex, vetoed every yellow I had, swore, and started thinking outside the box.

Terra cotta? Looked good with the green. Didn't outright clash with the purple. Had the same problem as that gold I spent an hour frogging this afternoon - the eye picks out the one warm color in with all the cools.

Mauve? Too close to the purple.

And then it hit me. The magical mystery color was....another shade of green (DMC 503, if you're keeping score). Substantially lighter than the other green, and a bit bluer. It doesn't hide in the image - but when you've got Green, Green, and Purple, you're going to see the purple.

Score one for the Floss-O-Dex. :) I won't get it done in a week - but it might only be eight days. And if I stitch it again (which I might - this is a fun pattern and a good exercise in color theory) I need either a more neutral fabric, or a bolder color scheme for the central motif.