purlsandmurmers

Sunday Progress

I had a bit of car-knitting time this weekend as we drove down to New Jersey to do a little shopping.  I have done most of the driving on longer trips lately so I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy just sitting in the car, watching the scenery go by, chatting and knitting. 

As a result I finished the back of Rage Management:

For the most part I really like the way this is turning out.

I am not fond of the rolled hem at the bottom.  Oh I know it is unblocked and unfinished now, but I find rolled hems are often somehow uneven and annoying.  I  "should" have thought about this before I started knitting, but now I am almost glad I didn't.  I can see that the rolled hem echoes the garter ridges at the top of the sweater and is therefore a nice design feature.  But I find it difficult to get rolled hems to lie just so and they always seem to be curling up or down or just looking unfinished, no matter what I do to anchor them in place. 

I started the front and I intentionally knit it the same way, so at the moment it rolls.  But I think when I am done I am going to unravel the bottom of both the front and back pieces and use the same pattern stitch that makes the ridged pattern at the top, knitting down from the body of the sweater, to finish the hem. 

At this point I think I will modify it slightly, making the final two or three rows seed stitch instead of stockinette, to combat that tendency to roll, but the actual technique will probably not be decided until I a actually knitting.

If had started the sweater differently, or changed the hem pattern before I started, I don't think this solution would have occurred to me.  Sometimes mistakes seem to lead to the best outcomes.

Easy knitting ahead

I apparently worry too much. 

The sweater is coming along just fine.  My gauge is consistent and right on target.  It just looks bigger slipping along on those circular needles that I tend to use.  I should know this by now.

The actual kntited fabric has a good bit more stretch than this piece of fleece and I don't think the fit will be a problem.  I did rewrite the instructions for the front of the pattern to add that extra inch on the right side, which makes the center front opening appear balanced on my body.  Any other tightness should be accommodated by the stretch of the sweater.  The sleeves also fit perfect.y.  I did increase the depth of the armhole in the front of the sweater by half an inch, but I did not change the sleeve shaping, easing that extra half inch around the front pulls the excess in around the sleeves, compensating for some of the forward roll of my shoulders. 

The fleece looks pretty good now.  I am happy I did this.  I have a good idea of how this will look on and I think the process of making a rough muslin like this is good when I am not sure about the fit of the sweater.  Perhaps sometimes I worry too much, such as in the case of this sweater, but I would still rather spend an hour or so at the beginning of the project working out the details than spend many hours knitting only to rip later.

Now I can move on to other things.

New Knitting

It is time for a new knitting project:

This pattern was purchased as a kit from L'Atelier yarns in Redondo Beach, CA in October 2007. The yarn is Highlander  from Alpaca With A Twist in color Dark Thistle. 

I wanted to start this so that I could have it to knit on the train to NYC on Friday night, although I was actually torn between whether I should knit or read, as I am really wrapped up in my current book at the moment. 

I really like the look of this sweater in the drawing, but I don't look at all like the illustration and I have some concerns about how this sweater will look on my own curvier body.  I don't want to spend a lot of time knitting it only to discover that it is a disaster.  So I had an idea, not an original idea, I am sure I read about this somewhere but I don't recall where at the moment.

I went to my local JoAnn Fabrics and picked up some plain simple cheap fleece -- whatever was on sale.

Then, using the pattern directions as a guide, and drawing directly on the fleece with a marker, I drew the shapes of the sweater pieces directly onto the fleece and cut them out.

Then I stitched them up quicky with my machine.  I used 1/4" seams.  I did not add a seam allowance to this pattern because the sweater is knit at 4 stitches to the inch with 1 stitch at each side as a selvedge stitch, which is the equivalent of a 1/4" seam.  If the seam had been much smaller I would have added a seam allowance to make it easier to sew.

Here is the result, without the sleeves:

Drawing the pattern on the fleece actually took longer than stitching up the pieces.  The pattern calls for 3 inches to be taken up at the upper back below the armhole openings.  In the pattern the decreases are spread evenly across the width of the sweater but I just took 3 tucks, which are actually kind of nice looking.  It is not exactly the pattern, but it gets the basic fitting issues across.

This pattern is not written so that the back and front are the same size.   In my sample, the back fits pretty well, as far as I can determine without the sleeves, but the front is too small, as you can see from this photo:

Actually, it is not too small through the shoulders, or at the hip, although I could get away with a little extra at the hip.  I think the knitted fabric is actually a little stretchier than this fleece, but not so much that I think it will compensate for this much pulling across the bust. 

It is difficult to see in this photo, and I was working under pretty tight time constraints so this photo will have to suffice, the front is actually much smaller on the right than on the left, and more snug at the right hip than at the left. 

So I need to draft a new front.  I seem to need about another inch at the left bust, and 2 inches on the right, tapering down to 1 additional inch at the right hip with nothing added at the left hip.  The shoulders should probably be left the same.

Once I have done this, I will need to alter the sleeve as the current sleeve draft will not fit the sweater once I am done altering the front pieces.  When I look at the sleeve pattern, as I have drawn it from the directions, I think it was going to need alterations anyway:

I don't think I like the really short, sharply angled sleeve cap, and the sleeve as written is both too narrow and too long for me.

But first, a new front.  And I haven't gotten back to the cutting table yet today.

I did start knitting last night although I spent more time reading than knitting.

I don't yet have enough length on the needles to actually reflect how this is going to hang but at the moment it looks a little big.  It is definitely stretchier than the fleece. So I might not need to add as much to the front as I originally thought.

First I need to knit another couple of inches and see if my gauge is the same as the swatch.  I must be tense when I knit gauge watches because my tension is often tighter than it is when I am actually relaxed and knitting.  Luckily I have the fleece pattern to use for comparison purposes.  Once I compare the knitted piece to the fleece, I will move on with redrafting the front piece, and perhaps ripping and restarting the back.

And so, despite all my good intentions I now have three projects sitting on the cutting table waiting for something to happen before they can progress. 

These Socks are made for Working

The socks are finished and they are perfect!

These were knit with ArtYarns Reality, a wool/acryllic blend, which I chose primarily for the colors.  I also wanted a thicker than usual pair of socks to wear with my steel-toed garden workboots.  The finished socks ended up being about the same thickness as the thick wool double-knitted socks that I purchased with the boots, but of course they are so much nicer because I knit them myself in colors I love.

I didn't really follow a pattern, just cast on stitches that I guessed would be about right for my ankle circumference, and worked from there, trying on as I went.

I looked at the pattern for  the pedicure socks  on knitty, because they were the basic inspiration.  I knit my pedicure socks using this yarn and love them so much that I needed another pair, with toes this time.  I didn't follow the pattern though, except for looking at the heel and heel gusset because I needed a little refresher course. 

The really neat thing was that the heel suddenly made sense to me, whereas before I had been somewhat mystified, having to look it up each time.  I haven't knit that many pairs of socks mind you, and most of them have had short-row heels, which I still think I prefer, but I suddenly "got" how a heel flap and gusset work and how to adapt the instructions to my narrow heel.  Now it all makes sense.  Only took me a couple  a few pairs of socks. 

I am glad I made the ankle portion as long as I did.  I wanted them to extend up past the top of the boot because my other socks don't (I tend to like short socks if I must wear socks at all) and sticks and things keep falling into my boot and driving me crazy.  These are just perfect.

Tiny Steps

When I was quite young, definitely under the age of 10, I remember my mother chastising me for starting more projects than I could reasonably finish and exhorting me, for once at least, to stick to something long enough to get it finished.   Obviously, 40 some-odd years later, this is a lesson I have yet to learn.  There remain piles of projects yet unfinished and ideas teaming around in my brain all just waiting for the opportunity to give birth to the next project.

Although I refuse to make lists of promises at the beginning of each new year, I remain determined to whittle down the project pile, and they are not all fiber-related projects. And actually, I feel like I have a good grip on the situation.  But still I am torn.  It is not that discipline is completely foreign, but that there is no pressure from outside forcing me to stick to some strict regime of one-project-at-a-time. And the biggest hurdle, for me at least, is actual mindfulness, at least where my projects are concerned.  The idea that I should have a plan, and approach my projects in some kind of orderly and informed fashion, rather than just dropping everything and running breathless after each pretty idea that flits through my brain, remains a struggle. My thoughts get ahead of my hands, and truthfully even my words, or my ability to express my ideas.  More times than I care to think about this year, I am working on one thing while my brain has moved on by leaps and bounds and I have no idea what I am working on, or even, awkwardly, what I am speaking of or writing about, and the ideas become all jumbled into some incoherent tangle which wasn't at all my original intention.  I become a fool,  an exuberant enthusiastic fool, but still a fool:  this is not the desired goal.

And so perhaps the best course remains to take baby steps and work slowly, finishing small things, and working in manageable bits. 

I have not progressed on to the cutting or sewing stage of my gray and yellow tee project. 

I am nearly done with a pair of socks to wear with my heavy work boots, a project that was supposed to have been started and finished last fall.  Had I not seen fit to rip a half-done sock and start over due to a silly mistake, these might be done.  But mindfulness seems to be an ongoing problem.  I have been out tramping in the garden and the woods several times this year already so the call of the mud and grass and trees is strong. A pair of thick cushy socks that actually fill in the gaps in my boots becomes an increasingly urgent need.

At least I have made a small dent in the stash, a little appetizer before the bigger projects that must come. 

Vogue Knitting Winter 2008

The new Vogue Knitting arrived in my mailbox today.  I was rather sad to see that it was, overall, fairly disappointing.  I have been buying Vogue Knitting since they reintroduced it in 1982 even though I did not know how to knit at that time. I had faith that I would learn.  Since I did not knit I did miss a few issues, but not many, only 2 or 3 issues are missing from my collection. 

I can honestly say however, that never, in all that time, have I been as completely uninspired by any issue as I am by this one. The cover looks promising,  the colors are thrilling, but the patterns themselves do not encourage me to whip out the needles and rifle through the stash, much less fire up the mouse and start seeking out new yarn.

Perhaps it is just me. 

Even the story line entitled "Oh Cables" did not brighten my spirits although I seem to have been tempted by cabled sweaters elsewhere:

Look at this wonderful cabled sweater currently on sale at Net-A-Porter. . Here is something I am inspired to knock-off, although I would change the length a bit to fit me and perhaps change the shape a little bit as well. 

Here is a detail photo of the cables:

The combination of the jacket shape and the hood and the cable pattern makes me itch to find some yarn and needles, although if it continues warm I probably won't need it this year and I already have a generous supply of sweaters that are too warm to wear.

I can't even say that I am attracted only to high-end designer knitwear.  I am also thinking about this cabled sweater from Moda Dea, a branch of Coats and Clarks.  The tie front isn't really for me but that is easily adapted to a simple narrow belt. and I just love the combination of pattern and the lines of this jacket. 

Both of these are styles that I would find fun to knit and would love to wear for a long time. 

The designs in the Vogue just don't pass that test for me.  Some of them are moderately interesting.  And I am not one to shy away from fashionable or trendy designs, but the Vogue patterns don't seem to have either enough spark or enough versatility to capture my attention.

Or perhaps it is just that I have too many one-outfit sweaters and am looking for something a little more basic.

Detanglings and Unclutterings

I am deep in re-organizing, decluttering, and generally clearing my thoughts and my sewing space for finishing up old projects and beginning new ones. 

After a long period of just having too much going on followed by a long fallow period where I just had no motivation to make anything, ideas are flowing again and there is much I want to get done.

But I don't want to jump into all the new ideas and leave all the things that I started last year unfinished, so I am sorting through projects and ideas, thinking about what I still want to work on (quite a bit by the way) and also trying to leave room for new inspirations.  I think I am actually coming up with a pseudo-plan, or at least a rough guide, and I will be updating you about that in the coming days.

Meanwhile, I am sorting through piles, untangling knots, both physical and mental, ripping a few knitting mistakes.

I have a stack of sweaters to work on and far more dreams than I could ever knit.

I also want to finish up many sewing projects that I started last year, and although I also want to jump into new projects, I want to wear the garments I never made as well, so it time to tackle all that stuff so it no longer weighs me down.

Oh, and I did write Patrones.  I should be hearing from them this coming week. Thank you all for the comments and encouragement.  Thank you also Natasha for inspiring me to move forward with this.

One of the decisions I have made is to actually get one of these Patrones patterns made up, sooner rather than later, although I may alternate working on it with finishing up a few of those old projects.