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Here you go...

My secret admirer, here is a photo...

Enjoy.

I have a long philosophical entry coming up, but not the effort to write it right now.

Oh, would you look at that!

And the Knitting Goddess spoke and said, "Let there be a new sweater!"

And lo, there was a new sweater.

And the Knitting Goddess looked at it and cocked her head and said, "Y'know, I think it's missing something. Add an accessory!"

And lo, there was an accessory!

And the Knitting Goddess said, "Well, good. That's all right, then."

And there was much rejoicing.

double booh.

What follows will be a display of frustration. We apologize for the inconvenience. Do not be alarmed, this is just the blogstress blowing off steam. We repeat, this is only the blogstress blowing off steam.

AAAAAAAAHHH!!!
WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE SO COMPLICATED?! WHY CAN'T I JUST BLINDLY FOLLOW A PATTERN FOR ONCE?!

Oh, that's right, because patterns are sized for normal people. I know these people exist, because I see them on television, but really, that's the only place. I. have had. enough.

I always get REALLY FRICKIN' annoyed when I have to resize this pattern or that pattern, or if it's made for someone with big boobs, it doesn't fit someone with a big ass, or vice versa, or if it's a good size but doesn't have waist shaping or or or or or...

The bottom line is that to create things that look good on you, you have to know your body, you have to work with it. Usually, the only way that can happen is to alter it for you. But since knitting is not sewing and you can't nip and tuck, life gets difficult sometimes. I miss the joy of blindly following a pattern. Of course, I don't miss the butt ugly garments that resulted, but it was nice just to simply make something and not have to use my internal calculator every five minutes, then try something on, only to find out I was wrong and have to frog it. Y'know. That gets annoying.

Basically, I got a sweater pattern that I'm about to start. I have to use one size for the hips, one size for the bodice and one size for the sleeves. None of which are particularly compatible with each other, especially since there's a lotta lace involved.

Also, it has been a long week.

But, I'm going to Knit Happens tomorrow with some cool peeps! Not the kind from the microwave.

booh.

I have officially ripped out and reknit every single piece of the vogue sweater, with the exception of one sleeve.

Sleeve #1 because I had too many increases.

Join & Body because it had 3" too much ease.

Collar because I thought picking up a stitch every other row was a good idea.

I was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. So I frogged 5" into a 6" collar.

GRRRR.

But, it WILL be finished before this party. Even if it kills me.

Blog reading pays!

So, Wil Wheaton very kindly pointed his readers towards this great buttonmaker. So, I made me some buttons so I can look like EVERY OTHER BLOG!

Thanks, Wil! I always loved Wesley! Of course, I was about 12 when TNG was on...

Metro knitter because I seem to get the most knitting done on public transit. And that's where I get my best stories.

As usual, feel free to yoink!

SO CLOSE TO FINISHED WITH THE VOGUE SWEATER. NOT FINISHED YET. AAAARG!

The comments on the travesty post have been hysterical.

So, to explain a lil, I was knitting on the metro coming home from a late night at work on Thursday. I was on the yellow line on the bridge over the Potomac, when I pulled some stitches onto my right hand needle. (Denise kits are fantastic, but the cord is thick and doesn't always want to slide). Apparently, I pulled too hard, as the needle came off in my hand. I believe I let out an audible gasp/groan of horror, swore a little, and then tried to get all of my stitches back onto the non broken needle.

My first thought was horror that it broke.

My second thought was 'What am I going to do on the rest of the ride home?'

Luckily, I met a friend at the bus stop (who I hadn't seen in AGES!), and we talked the whole way to (my) home.

Right now, I'm about at where I was before the frogging, which is good! I might make deadline after all. Which would be fantastic because clothing selection SUCKS right now. If it's not pastel (mainly pink), it's ugly. If it's not pink or ugly, it doesn't fit me.

Granted, I didn't look very hard because I didn't have a lot of time, but it seems that a cute red dressy shirt isn't out there for under $45 right now. I found a couple of adorable little red dresses that were on sale, but I tried them on and realized that indeed, they were too little. Limited and Express should be limited to tops. How silly of me for daring to dream. I may have lost inches from my waist and dropped a size and a half, but that's not enough.

Stupid fashion.

Worth 4000 words

Grrr...

You might think mashing 175+ stitches onto a 30" circ would be a good idea.

You'd be wrong.

I just tried on the body I've spent the past 2.5 hours reworking after frogging. It's still a bit baggy. Even over the bust.

I suppose it's because with the new gauge I need about 83 stitches for the front and back (separately) and I started out with 93.

It looks like I'll be compensating for the decreases by lowering the hemline to just below belt loops. This is actually a brilliant idea anyway.

Now if only I can get those remaining 8" and 8 decreases done! And then the sleeves added and body finished! And then the collar! And the finishing! Before April 3rd! While doing job apps at the same time!

Yeah, no, I didn't think so either.

If I keep frogging, will I meet my prince?

Everyone say hi to my Vogue sweater as of 7:30 pm this evening. Hi Vogue sweater! Isn't she pretty?

She's dead now. I've killed her.

Or rather, I've put her on life support.

See, I tried her on at about 7:35. Then I frowned. Then I measured.

44" around. For a shell sweater.

Note to self: Next time I start a sweater in the round, SWATCH IN THE ROUND!

So, I ripped out the 1.5" of full body (remember, 1 round = 12 minutes), then 6" of the body. Blech.

Now I'm doing waist decreases (which I wasn't doing before) and have go get back to 12" from my current 7".

I can see the future. It involves buying a red shirt for the murder mystery party. Sorry, birthday boy.

Gosh Darn it!

I have no money, the yarn I'd use is in California, but oh gods!

Cardiganized Rogue!

I don't normally like hoodies, but I think I can make an exception and have this replace my sketchy gray hooded sweatshirt that's pretty darn fugly. I just can't wear it under my hooded jacket, lest I be called Quasimodo.

Heh.

I joined the sleeves to my sleeveless raglan. It was fun. (I had a time figuring out how to split for the v-neck, but all seems to be well)

I've forgotten how GOSH DARNED SLOW seamless raglans feel when you join sleeves to the body.

It took me 12 minutes to do a knit row - start, finish and 6 decreases.

It'll be amusing hauling this thing on the metro tomorrow too!

Ho hum...

So, I haven't updated since Wednesday.

There isn't much new to report.

I've been in a bead buying frenzy, making stitch holders and finding matching beads for Bella. I found a beautiful match. Alas they were $4 each, making two beads more expensive than the entire bag of yarn (bought at a garage sale at $.50 a skein for $5 total) for the project.

So, I've spent about $25 on the sweater so far, and the most expensive bit has been the pattern. I find this amusing.

I should give y'all pics on my seamless raglan, but at this point, all it is is k3p3 ribbing for 5" and then a bunch of mindless stockinette. I've finished the sleeves, but had to go back to the body to add 1.5".

Yep. No pics either. I'm at work. Ha ha!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!! (A bad one)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

I LEFT MY KNITTING AT HOME TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to play receptionist today! For an hour and a half! WITHOUT KNITTING!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

And I was really looking forward to getting more done on my sweater.

Hat & Scarf!

I made a hat. I made a scarf. They do not match at all.

First, the hat.

I made this hat for a dear friend from work. He'd had dreads for two months and then cut them off. This was my attempt to give them back.

The yarn is mystery yarn that a friend sent me, though my money's on Red Heart TLC. The pattern is based on this longstocking cap. I just split the brim after finishing the shaping and worked the pattern and followed the pattern. I skipped some rows because there's only so much DPNs I can take. All in all, I think it turned out well.

The scarf is matching my spiffy new hat:

The scarf is a feather and fan out of a bulky Berrocco cotton/acryllic mix. It went by in about 5 minutes. I worked it in two parts because I wanted to get the cool scalloped edges on both sides. The downside is there's an odd pucker where I grafted the two together.

Cool thing about this- I thought I'd finished one piece on a wrong side row and one on a right side row. As it turns out, I was wrong.

As it also turns out, futzing with kitchener stitch, I realized that by doing kitchener stitch incorrectly, I could create a purl seam instead of a knit seam (that's why kitchener stitch seams look so smooth- you're basically creating a new knit row between the two sets of stitches). So, by doing it badly, I saved myself having to add a knit row somewhere!

Dude!

Washington Post Knitting Article!

Now, it's a typical "knitting is now cool for the young people" article, but this is my paper. So yay.

Do NOT mock the kitty hat.

ANY kitty hat.

Yay!

Lots of knitting was done this weekend.

I have a sleeve for my vogue sweater! I finished it about 20 minutes ago. Which is bad, because I was trying to stop knitting at 10 and go to bed early for a change, but got caught up in the naughtiness of "it's almost finished! Just a couple more rows... nope, still needs a few more... This is good, but if I give it two more, I'll get that frill at the wrist I like! Oh, look, it's done, but Crossing Jordan only has 10 more minutes. Let me cast on for the next sleeve!"

This is impressive, considering I'd started the sleeve on the bus on Friday. I'd orginally been frightened of this whole knitting with two circs thing, but I was trying to use magic loop and was transferring stitches from my size 6 Denise needles to my size 6 Susan Bates circs when I realized that the 48 stitches were too small for that. And then I looked at the needles and heavenly music started playing and I realized that I knew how to do it.

That evening, knitting with some people and drinking wine, I realized that the original increases I thought I had to do for the sleeve was off by about 6 sets, or 14 stitches. That's a lot. I ripped back 4 increases and redid it straight, and did the final increases at my upper arm flab where I needed more room.

Random side note- Brent Spiner was on Law & Order tonight! When did he get so old?!

At a stitch 'n' bitch today, I finished Otis' hat. I like it and I'm satisfied, but it feels heavier than the original hat did. Maybe because the weight isn't centralized anymore? I don't know.

Pics when I get 'em.

Also, at the s'n'b today, someone mentioned that people who have blogs are, by nature, self centered. Me? self centered?

I don't know what you're talking about.

Just a few things...

I've decided to join the rest of the knitblogging world and make Rogue. As a cardigan. It's been done.

This I decided at work today. And then I thought I'd use yarn from the Frogger sweater, but realized it probably wouldn't hold the cables too well, being acryllic and stuff. Then I remembered I have this lovely, Turkish handspun yarn. I have two wheels of it, one blue, one red. The blue is currently turning into Jack and the Beanstalk (the project that will never, ever be finished), and the red was going to turn into a Rosedale with a cable flame lace variation, but now I think that might be the next thing.

Then I went to my LYS in between getting off work and coming back to work for the invited dress rehearsal. I went to pick up size 6 DPNs and size 10 DPNs that are shorter than 10".

They were out of size 6 DPNs

I found a nice set of 5 Crystal Palace wooden 10 DPNs, which Otis' hat is currently residing on. I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and make my sleeves using magic loop. I do not like magic loop, especially when beginning the project. It makes it extremely likely you'll twist stitches and make yourself a mobius band of a sleeve. At least, in Christinaland it does.

The other problem? THEY HAD SILKY WOOL! Silky wool! For Menja! In purple! AAAH! AAAH! AAAH!

And granted, the purple shade is not the nice lavendar I originally had in mind. It's much darker, but I think it could be very striking on me.

BUT I CAN'T BUY ANY MORE YARN. Until, until, until. Until I finish Bella, Vogue, my cable strap tank, Jack, make something out of those 700 yards of black wool that keep taunting me, etc...

But. I. Want. To.

And really, I think Otis' hat, like my stash hat just attracts people's attention for whatever reason. I'm getting into all sorts of random conversations with people (on the bus today) about it. With the stash hat, it was after the fact, and not during, but I guess hats just catch people's eyes.

Hats, or DPNs.

Metro knitting!

This is too funny not to share.

I had to leave the office to run an errand for work (and got some shopping in on the side, go me!), and knit on the metro to and from.

Vogue knitting had stalled while I figured out sleeve problems, and so I'd taken along Otis' pigtailed hat, which is adapted from the longstocking cap by simply splitting the stitches after the crown shaping and continuing the pattern normally, but with only half the stitches. It's an experiment. We'll see how it works.

Splitting the brim requires double pointed needles. My only size 10 DPNs are 10" long. They're the only size 10 DPNs I've ever found and they suck. They're way too huge, awkward and conspicuous.

Which is why, on the four times I knit on the subway today, I got the "I've never seen anyone knit with four needles before!" four times. One from a guy (about 18) who knew how to knit but only scarves and his possible girlfriend who wanted to learn how, one from a man who had someone knit a sweater for him for his birthday (his someone must have loved him very much), one from a woman who crocheted, and one from a 12 year old girl.

The 12 year old was on the other side of the (crowded, rush hour) subway car and talking loudly about it. Since I wasn't wearing headphones and I am not Deaf, I heard every word, and called across that it wasn't as hard as it looked (which was hard- the yarns were horribly twisted and I had my circ holding the inactive stitches) and that it was the same as knitting with two needles.

The guy standing next to me turns around and says "Weren't you knitting something different yesterday? Wasn't it maroon?"

'Do I know you?' I thought. Indeed, yesterday I was working on my cranberry Vogue sweater body. I'd been panicking about the sleeves and left the project until I could figure it out. I said as much (but without as much specifics) and he said it was fascinating to watch.

And then I got off the train and got on a bus.

Le sigh...

I love that I'm designing this raglan sweater, even though I have no idea of the mathematics of raglans.

45 minutes later, I seem to be on the right track. So, hey! Go me!

Edit: Oh wait, no I'm not.

See, I originally designed the thing using KnitWare. Which sucks. A lot.

I mean it doesn't, but it can't read my mind and know that the raglan I want to make is actually a seamless. KnitWare likes seams. A lot.

So, the underarm decreases before the sleeves go for 24 stitches over 4 rows (2 in the round), instead of 12 over 2 (1 in the round). And then there's the strange, strange bit of decreasing every 3 rows instead of every two. Though, Knitware's row count is usually very off.

I've also been checking raglan patterns with nearly identical stitch counts as mine (210 and 209 instead of 206) and these two patterns (with 1 less stitch) have radically different ways of doing the shaping.

Ack. I guess I'll just bind off 10 and decrease every other row until I run out of stitches, while following the directions for the neck decreases.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Sleeve caps are of the devil. Without them I could rule the knitting world! Rule it! Like a queen!

Woo hoo!

All I ever need to complete a sweater is a deadline and motivation.

On April 3rd, Christina Scarlett will be taking part in a murder mystery birthday party (in New York!). As such, I will need to have a nice red top by that date.

My Vogue shawl collar thingie is red. And at the bust increases right now.

Excellent.

For the poor knitters out there...

If you don't want to spend lots and lots of money on the cool, pretty beaded stitch markers, I've found paper clips substitute beautifully.

Small ones for needle size 5 and smaller, larger ones for larger works. Pics when I get the chance.

Knitting Goddess #9

Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Here you go...

Monday, March 29, 2004

Oh, would you look at that!

Friday, March 26, 2004

double booh.

booh.

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Blog reading pays!

Sunday, March 21, 2004

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Worth 4000 words

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Grrr...

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

If I keep frogging, will I meet my prince?

Gosh Darn it!

Monday, March 15, 2004

Heh.

Ho hum...

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!! (A bad one)

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Hat & Scarf!

Dude!

Monday, March 08, 2004

Sunday, March 07, 2004

Yay!

Thursday, March 04, 2004

Just a few things...

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Metro knitting!

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Le sigh...

Woo hoo!

Monday, March 01, 2004

For the poor knitters out there...

Things to see...