Thursday, August 26, 2004

Yay.

I sequestered myself in the bedroom last night for two hours of (mostly) uninterrupted knitting and emerged, victorious, with this:

hello, nice to meet you!
hello, nice to meet you!

I can't believe I finally finished it. Click here for the odyssey. What a fun sweater to knit. I think I will have to stay on the lookout for some top-down raglan patterns to knit for myself. If anyone knows of any good ones - cardigans or pullovers - send the info my way!

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Back to the daily grind...

I'm back from New York, sadly. We did so much that it would be impossible to type it all, but here are a few of my favorite photos from the trip. We also made a pitstop at the Yuengling Brewery on the way home. What better way to end our vacation?

Not too much knitting was accomplished, unfortunately, but I've updated with my progress on the Paris Loop over there on the left. I am looking forward to getting some knitting done tonight and hope to have a better update in a few days.

Monday, August 16, 2004

If I can make it there...

Well, I'd hoped to have a finished photo of the baby sweater to post today, but I had precious little knitting time this weekend and only got about one and a half inches into the second sleeve. The good news is that I'll be going to NYC this week for a wedding this weekend, so I have about 15 total hours of car knitting time to look forward to! We leave on Wednesday afternoon and will be making a stop to have dinner with friends in Philadelphia in the evening before driving through to Jersey City to spend the night with friends. Thursday morning, we're off to Manhattan. Our hotel is very close to the Met, so I am planning to spend all day Friday there. Hopefully I will make it to one of the fabulous NYC yarn stores, but we'll see if I can drag the fiance and friend to any of them.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Here she is...

The finished Summer in the City Tank:

please ignore the horribly unflattering photo
please ignore this horribly unflattering photo

Click here to see the progress along the way. A few observations on this project:

1. This design is really meant for someone who is much taller and slimmer, and thus, looks terrible on me.

2. In addition to being an unflattering shape, it is pretty big on me, which makes matters even worse. I hope to be able to shrink it a little bit so that it is, at the very least, wearable.

3. While I loved the look of this yarn in the hanks, I hated every minute of knitting with it. I vow never to use a cotton and silk blend ever again. The yarn was uncomfortably nubby to knit with, doesn't feel very nice, and has no strength or elasticity. Case in point- I was pulling the end through the final loops on one of the straps to knot it, tugged gently, and the yarn broke apart. Also, the fabric that this yarn makes is a little stiff and not especially drapey, which adds to the finished tank looking terrible on me.

What did I learn from this, my first adult garment?

1. To pay more attention to my gauge next time. I probably should have known that it was going to be too large when I was only a few inches it to the first piece, when I could have made adjustments.

2. Obviously, I love wool and will never be really happy with cotton due to its lack of elasticity. I have some Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in the stash that I think I'll try out on another tank.

3. I should knit patterns that might have a chance of looking good on me, and not that just look good on the very skinny.

4. That it feels really good to have finished at least one thing.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Doh!

I think I need to frog and restart the poncho. My gauge is a bit smaller that the Paris Loop pattern, and I am afraid that, though I could get the poncho on, I will have no range of motion as it is right now. I think that 10-20 extra stitches should do the trick. Sigh.

Finished sleeve one of the baby sweater and should have that completed this weekend, I hope. It's still the cutest thing ever and I'll definitely be knitting this pattern again.

I consulted a crocheting friend about the edging on the summer in the city tank last night, and I also hope to have that finished this week, or at least soon.

Oh, to finish at least one thing...

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Pon-cho, here I come

Cast on for Paris Loop last night and got about 3 inches into it on the bus this morning. I can see this is going to go pretty quickly, so that should be satisfying. Hopefully it is not too big, and it looks as cute as Stefanie's in her pattern photo.

Also updated this page, posting a finshed objects section on the left side, and posted a progress photo for the baby sweater. I've actually finished and seamed the pieces of the Summer in the City Tank, and just need to crochet on the straps. I think I'll make it my weekend goal to finish that thing, now that we're moving into fall and it will be too cold to wear it. That's assuming it actually fits- it was a little big when I tried it on post-seaming.

I'm taking a day off tomorrow, so hopefully there will be lots of knitting and relaxing!

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

I heart Noro

Just got the Simply Noro pattern book today, which has a pattern (called Hareton) for a hat made with one (one!) ball of Kureyon. I have long been wanting to make something out of Kureyon, but can't really afford to spend on a whole sweater's worth of it at the present time, so I bought just one of colorway 130 a few weeks ago and have been wondering what to do with it. Voila! There are a lot of patterns that I'd like to try once I feel like I can pony up the money for the yarn, like Zillah, Agnes, Chambers and Lockwood.

In other yarn news, I've been busy buying up the remainder of the Woolspun stock from Lion Brand's online yarn store, e-yarn.com. I absolutely love thick and thin yarns, and this stuff is $2.50/ball now that it's been discontinued. So far, I've bought 40+ balls in four different colors. Some of it is destined to become my Paris Loop poncho, and some is destined to become a turtleneck. I have this fascination with Colinette Point Five yarn, which is thick & thin, but at $20+ per 54 yd ball, I'm afraid it's a little out of my price range.

The baby sweater is coming along nicely. The sleeves are going more quickly than I would have thought, but it's had to switch from Addi Turbos to Inox needles. I couldn't find Addi dpns locally, didn't want to order, and thought the Inox would be okay, but I guess I'm just spoiled. Wah.