One Step Closer

Well, today was my last day at my job. It was a little sad; I'll miss the guys I worked with. But I'm also really happy because driving to work on an icy, snowy county road in North Dakota every day totally sucks.

In knitting news, I have been working steadily on Christmas things and bought some new yarn to make Andy a hat. I was completely shocked by him the other day when I woke up: after having been up all night he was asking me about how feasible different combinations of knit and purl stitches in different rows would be and how it would look. I showed him examples of what he had designed in Mary Thomas's Book of Knitting Patterns and he was a little disappointed that his ideas weren't totally original. I, on the other hand, was thoroughly impressed as I don't think I would have thought with such originality. I'm a bit jealous to be honest, he's never knit a stitch in his life but he's more of a designer than I am. I've completely corrupted him.

And I will be restarting Frostrosen, this time with terrifyingly small size 0 needles. Since I am now unemployed, some good progress with pictures should be reported here in the near future.

Why? WHY?!?

Things were going great, or so I thought. Then that point came. The point where you want to keep going, pretending nothing's wrong, but you finally realize you can't ignore that what you're knitting is the wrong size. Damn! I ripped this thing out twice already because weaving just wasn't working; no matter what I did the white yarn would show between some of the black stitches and I just couldn't have that. So, I started stranding. That fixed the color problem, but after knitting the cuff and several rows of the hand, I realized that this mitten is gigantic and my gauge is for the large size. I had planned on knitting the medium size, and was using the needles called for, US size 2. I think now that I will have to go down to size 0 needles and make the smallest size.



Anyway, I wanted to post SOMETHING, because I have been spending fruitless hours on this thing, so here's a picture of the cuff. I was pretty happy with it. There are a few places where my dpns meet where I think the floats were just a tiny bit tight. I was really hoping to finish the first mitten this weekend, but I think I'm going to hold off for a few days before I restart it and work on something else. I guess I'll just have to chalk this third false start up to experience.

Finally, A Real Project

Yay! I'm so happy cause my mitten kit came today! It was just what I needed after a truly unbelievable, crap day. I can't wait to start them. I have actually been working on some really nice cabley (cabley?) things lately, but just don't feel it would be prudent to post; I don't really know who reads my blog. So, actual knitting on actual projects that I can post about will commence shortly.

I Get It!

Shortly after my last post I realized what I was doing wrong and that I was making things much more difficult than necessary for myself. Here's an example of how I was doing things wrong: I had an XXXO pattern where X is the yarn held in my right hand, and O is held in my left hand. I would knit the first X normally, the second I would knit weaving the left hand yarn, the third would be knit normally, then I would knit a stitch with the left hand yarn and weave in the right hand yarn, just because the last stitch was not woven. Get it? So after watching this video again, I realized that I should only be weaving in yarn if I'm making more than two stitches in a row in that color. Phew! Here is a photo of more practice diamonds.



The bottom section was practice in German knitting, the next inch or two was practice stranding, the next inch and a half or so was weaving the wrong way, and the rest was proper weaving. I think it's starting to look a lot better, I just need to practice getting the tension right. Also the edges of this swatch are pretty messed up because I cast on the wrong number of stitches for weaving in flat knitting, but of course I won't make that mistake with an actual pattern.




This is so much easier now that I'm doing it correctly, and it works at least as well as stranding did for me. I'm going to stick with it since I definitely prefer the back of woven fabric.

In non-knitting news I went to see North Country on Sunday. I thought they did a good job. I really admire the women who worked in the mines and went through so much so women today don't have to deal with such extreme sexual harassment. And besides calling pop "soda" (which my mom can't get over), they didn't botch the northern Minnesota accent; it wasn't always good, but it wasn't exaggerated like in Fargo either. I would definitely recommend seeing it.

First Foray Into Fair Isle or Practice Makes...Better?

Okay. So I am attempting to practice Fair Isle before my mitten kit comes, and it's more difficult than expected. Below are some photos of my first attempt at a diamond pattern. I should note that I am doing several things for the first time here: 1. fair isle knitting 2. knitting with two hands 3. knitting with my left hand 4. weaving. Making the process more difficult is knitting in the round with three dpns for my first attempt at this method. It's like trying to juggle raw eggs drunk. Not that I've ever done that, but it seems like it would be similarly difficult.



So far I find that I just cannot get a uniform tension. It's too tight, as can be seen at the bottom of my swatch below, too loose, or just all over the place. The back of my work looks pretty messy too. What I'm really not sure about is how to do "overs" and "unders" when changing colors. Do I religiously stick to alternating "over" and "under" regardless of the color changes that are happening and use the appropriate method of weaving the yarn depending on whether it is in my right or left hand? Does that make any sense?




My other obvious option is to forget about weaving for now and try stranding (is it easier? it seems like it has to be) for the mitten, but the whole idea of weaving appeals to me more. Does anyone with more experience with this, i.e. any, have any suggestions? Besides having awful tension, am I doing anything blatently wrong in how I'm weaving the yarn in the back?

More Koalas

I finished this guy this morning and I think he turned out pretty cute. Behind him is the knit afghan I've been occasionally working on. It was nice to have a crochet project in between all the knitting I've been doing lately. I've been crocheting for quite a while longer than I've been knitting, and while knitting is my obsession, there's something soothing about working on a crochet project now and then.

Yesterday I ordered the Frostrosen kit. I've been wanting to order it for weeks, but couldn't justify it when I have several Christmas presents to knit. Then I had a revelation: why not knit Frostrosen for my Grandma Rose instead of yet another Branching Out? I don't think she even uses scarves and after two Branching Outs I'm sick of the pattern. I think she'll enjoy the mittens more and it gives me the perfect excuse to make them.

Sunny Day, Sweepin the Clouds Away

At any one time I have about two channels on the TV that work. One is invariably PBS, so during lunch breaks I get my fair share of Sesame Street when there's nothing but infomercials on Fox. And I still love it.

Anyway, since it's such a yucky, cold, rainy day I thought I'd post a nice sunny flower to at least brighten up the blog.

I've been negative lately in more areas of my life than just knitting as I've been stressed about the last semester and moving...stressed because it can't all come to an end soon enough. I mean I can't wait to get the FUCK out of here. No offense to ND natives, or people currently living here, but this place is horrible. The best thing about living here is the appreciation it's given me for Duluth and I can't wait to go home. This week I've finally realized that after this week I will have a mere three weeks left at my job, and five left at school until I graduate and MOVE. It's finally making me happy.

Eating right and exercising might help my mood too. Yesterday I had a late night "meal" of croutons, an old fortune cookie (it said I'll be more successful than average in business...hmm..), and an apple with carmel. The day before I had macaroni and cheese without milk and candy bars for dinner. In case you didn't already know, water is not an appropriate substitute for milk in mac and cheese. What the hell is wrong with me?? I'll cook something good this weekend, honest.

On the knitting front I've been working on the koala and afghan while trying to figure out what to do about the dreaded pink yarn. I can't wait for Christmas to be over so I can start working on some things I really want for myself. I'm dying to make a pair or two of socks (everyone else is doing it), but don't have time or yarn. By the way, I notice a lot of people are going the toe-up route. Is there a distinct advantage in this method or is it just another way of doing things? I also can't wait to work on some of the beautiful mittens from Nordic Fiber Arts. Specifically Frostrosen and Nordasno. I'd like to start knitting sweaters as well, I'm planning on something like the Big Sack Sweater from Stitch n Bitch except knit in the round, and with a different neck, and ribbing at cuffs and hem...so basically I just want to do my own thing via EZ and use the cable from the Big Sack pattern. Also I'm really thinking about Klaralund, all the ones I've seen online have turned out lovely and I think it's something I would really wear. It would be cool to knit that in the round, but I don't know what it would do to the stripes. I think it's worth it to try anyway, especially if it'll save me from seams.

Finally, it seems that I completely forgot to post the pattern link with my finished shrug (which I like now by the way) so I will post it now. I got the actual pattern from here, there's a link on the right side for the Craftster Circular Shrug. And here's the link to the thread with pages and pages of information about this pattern and how it came about.

Update - Happier

Well, I've tried the circular shrug on again and think I am getting used to it. I must have some form of postknitum depression. Reading back on some of my recent posts I find that I have something negative to say about almost everything I knit, even things I am proud of or have turned out the way I wanted, and only really appreciate them after they've been sitting around finished for a while. And I do feel better after Jess's words of encouragement and like the idea of a "nice comfy vesty thing" - thank you. From now on, I will try to take a step back and evaluate my work more objectively and a little less critically. There's no need to be perfect, and honestly perfect rarely appeals to me.

Disappointment

I finished my circular shrug today (except sewing in the ends) and I'm not sure if I'm happy with it. It turned out a bit too large and sort of hangs and doesn't have much shape. I do like the buttons which I sewed on to some kind of pin back that I found in the jewelry making section of the craft store. I just don't know.

The one good thing about this project was that I successfully used mattress stitch for the first time. It was easy enough but I detest any form of sewing, hence why the ends still aren't sewn in. I rarely knit anything with seams and have used a crochet seam in the past which works but admittedly mattress stitch is much better. I'll still try to avoid it at all costs and when I start making sweaters they will be seamless. I remember reading EZ's Knitting Without Tears for the first time nodding my head and smiling at someone who has such a similar knitting philosophy to my own.



The yarn I ordered so long ago finally came and I picked it up yesterday. I ordered two skeins of Brown Sheep Co. Lambs Pride Superwash, one bulky, one worsted. When I picked up the yarn I thought the wrong thing had been ordered for me as I could barely tell the bulky from the worsted. I have used the bulky yarn for projects before and I loved how thick and soft it was. But the skein I received had really thin plies that were easily separating by themselves. You can see how much difference there is between left overs of Superwash bulky that I had (grey yarns) and the new skein of pink. I think it's aran weight at best. I don't know what to do. I need it for the project I was going to use it for, but it just won't work if it's not bulky. I've emailed Brown Sheep Co. so we'll see what happens. Otherwise I guess I'll have to try and return it and figure out something else. Talk about disappointing...



I really need a quick satisfying project. The one I had planned for this yarn would have been just that, but it's turned into something stressful as I really don't have time to deal with this and find another suitable yarn in the right color. I'll stop complaining and try to salvage the rest of the day by eating and watching tv. That usually works.