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Swatch love

Things I Love Today:

How amazing it feels to knit chunky wool with chunky needles.

Pardon the crappy nighttime cell phone pic.

In the last three days, I’ve knit something like 1200 yards of cotton/linen blend on #5 and #6 needles. My hands are killing me. So while the pieces of the sweater were blocking this afternoon… I couldn’t resist whipping out a few swatches.

I love swatching. So little commitment, but somehow so satisfying. I didn’t keep my swatches before I started designing (okay, full disclosure–sometimes I didn’t even swatch at all…), but since I actually have to make sure things fit now, things have changed. I currently keep all my swatches, tagged with the needle size and yarn info, in this little plastic bag I got from the last Stitch N’ Pitch at Dodger Stadium.

Truthfully, I think I’m going to outgrow it soon:

And while I had it out, I felt the need to take all the swatches out for a photo op (cause I’m weird like that, I guess–I want my swatches to get some love!). Remember, these are only since I started designing last summer… that should give you an idea of how much I swatch these days.

Isn’t that beautiful?

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want…

(And yes, I’m perfectly aware that title dates me.)

I’ve decided I really want a digital SLR camera. I’ve been doing all my pattern and project photography with a fairly nice Sony point-and-shoot. It has very limited manual settings, though, so I have to be super-careful about lighting.

Bright, sunny days are nice and all, but when you have them 99% of the time, photography can be a nightmare. I’ve taken a bunch of my pattern pictures at the beach (as you might notice), because it’s one of the only places in the greater LA area that usually has cloud cover.

Why am I so happy in this picture? Because it's the first time I had seen clouds in three months.

Another issue is that contrary to popular opinion, there are places in LA that are far from the beach. I happen to live in one of them. It takes about forty-five minutes to get there when there’s no traffic (which is never). If I have three or four samples to photograph, the trip is worth it, but otherwise it’s a giant pain in the behind.

Over Christmas, I ~~stupidly~~ intelligently decided to try out my mother-in-law’s Canon Rebel T3.

I am deeply, madly in love with this camera. Using just the kit lens, I wandered around their house and yard taking pictures of everything, and THEY ALL CAME OUT GREAT.

Proof I’m not lying:

Are these not the tastiest-looking jellybeans you’ve ever seen?

This next picture is, I think, the best one I’ve ever taken. And it’s of CILANTRO.

Can you imagine what this camera could do with, say, a Madelinetosh sweater?

So the bottom line is, I want a DSLR. Desperately. But it’s not in the budget right now, so I’ll have to be content with my ~~POS~~ P&S until I make enough money by selling my designs to purchase one.

And if anyone has recommendations for entry-level DSLRs or places to buy them, I’d love to hear about it!

Aiiieeeee…

I’m starting a new category: things I definitely don’t like ever (TIDDLE for short, cause somehow that helps).

I was happily knitting away on the back piece of my current sweater design. I had knit about 10 inches when I noticed something awful.

Bottom of front piece. See where the pattern begins?

Bottom of back piece on which I'd already knit 10 FRICKING INCHES

Do you see it? I started the cable pattern two rows earlier on the back piece.

Now, this is a rolled edge, so ordinarily I’d just try to fudge it when sewing up, confident that it’d be hidden in the roll anyway. But the big problem is that I counted from the edge when doing the waist decreases.

This means the (paired) decreases on the front and back pieces, the ones I purposely intended to be visible at the sides of the sweater, aren’t going to line up. And the cable motif won’t line up either. The mistake would definitely be noticeable.

I wanted to cry. But instead I ripped out all 10 inches and came here to whine about it. And oddly, I feel a little better. So I’m off to start the back over again. Thanks for “listening”. :-)

WIP Wednesday

Things I love today (TILT! Ha! Definitely gonna use that more often…):

How quickly a sweater goes after you reach the sleeve and neck shaping.

Also my cat, who has excellent taste in toys.

That's a sweet custom lightsaber from Disneyland, folks.

2nd Anniversary

Two years ago yesterday, I was in Italy getting married to my best friend.

When we got engaged, he promised me an Italian wedding (I had always wanted to go, but had never been). Boy did he deliver! Our closest family and friends joined us outside Rome for the ceremony, and then we honeymooned in Florence and Venice:

The Duomo, Florence

One of the many stunning bridges in Florence

St. Peter's Square, Venice

Venice: probably my favorite picture of the entire trip

Fast forward two years, and I couldn’t be happier. I have truly found my perfect match. He’s kind and thoughtful and funny and supportive and all-around wonderful.

Happy anniversary, honey. I love you!

FO Friday: Smittens

A quick little FO today: ornaments gifted to my mom for her tree!

Pattern: Smitten (a Holiday Garland) (Rav link)

Yarn: Leftover Malabrigo Worsted from the Give ‘Em the Slip Set, leftover Malabrigo Rios from SoCal, and I think the gray is leftover Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted from something lost in the mists of time.

Notes: This pattern is really easy and fun! The worst part of it was knitting worsted yarn with size #3 US needles, but even that wasn’t too bad. I sewed the loop wrongly on the first one (it’s supposed to be on one side only, not across the whole mitt), but I liked the way it looked so I did them all like that.

Now I’m wondering if I could use the same pattern for baby mittens, hmm…

Christmas Was Awesome

Hope everyone out there in blogland had a great Christmas!

I know I did. I made a Knit Picks wishlist for the first time this year, and boy did my family come through!

The yarn is the KP Wool of the Andes sampler in bright colors (I can’t wait to start in on colorwork hats and mittens, yay!). The needles are Harmony DPNs, which I’ve wanted for a while. Unfortunately, I got two sets of size #9 needles, but I already called Knit Picks and packaged up the duplicates to exchange for another size.

Then there are two stitch dictionaries–I keep checking these two books out from the library and am thrilled to have copies of my very own! My MIL also got me the adorable sweater keyring.

And last but not least, this amazing Namaste case for essential accessories:

The inside of the case. The divider is magnetic!

I also got one other yarny gift… but I went back and forth on whether to post it here. I decided to do it, but be forewarned:

THE PICTURES BELOW MAY CAUSE DISTRESS TO PEOPLE WHO LIKE YARN.

You sure you want to see this?

Really sure?

Okay… but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This is what I saw when I looked in the gift bag she handed me (with no warning, I might add):

And when I dumped it out:

I think I may have hyperventilated a little bit (and not in the good way). Most of that yarn is CUT, people. Not to mention tangled beyond hope of sorting out. Someone took a bunch of yarn–mostly acrylic, but some wool–wound it into dozens of hanks, and then CUT THE STRANDS. Seriously, WTF?

SIL told me she found the bag at a yard sale for $1.00 and had to get it for me. I tried to be appreciative, but I was kind of terrified.

Any suggestions on what to do with this mess?

FO Friday: Husband’s Sweater!

Almost four months ago, I offered to make my husband a custom sweater. Last week, I finally finished it!

Model pose–isn't he handsome?

The sweater was, quite honestly, a giant pain in the behind. But it fits perfectly and looks great on him (if I do say so myself, heh). And most of the pain was my own fault. I showed him a bunch of sweater pictures and told him he could pick whatever features he wanted.

Instead of a stockinette raglan (as I’m told most men tend to want), he picked out an Elizabeth Zimmerman saddle-shouldered, seamless hybrid pullover with folded (sewn) hems, a henley neck opening, a hood, and a fairly complex cable detail on the edge of the hood.

Oy. I had never done saddle sleeves before, but I had a copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting Without Tears and figured it couldn’t be too hard. I worked up a sketch and set to work.

Look how excited he was!

My original sketch, for posterity.

The turned hems went okay, but then I tried it on him and it was huge, even though I had swatched carefully and done all the math. Okay. I ripped it out and cast on 20 fewer stitches. This time I got about eight inches done before I tried it on him again. Still too big. After a good moan, I ripped it back to the beginning again and cast on 15 fewer stitches.

I slogged my way through the seemingly-endless stockinette of the body and sleeves. Then I got to the yoke.

Cue the ominous music.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the decrease section to look like the sweaters I saw on Ravelry or the picture in Knitting Without Tears. I spent hours gnashing my teeth and swearing as I ripped the top part out again and again. It was to the point where my husband started apologizing for requesting the sweater and asking me if I wanted to chuck the whole thing.

This only made me attack the sweater with renewed determination. I was not going to let it beat me. Finally, after hours of searching forums on Ravelry, I found one (1) post that explained the problem. I’m documenting it here, in the hopes that it will help some other poor soul, currently roaming the internet and cursing Elizabeth Zimmermann’s pithy directions.

The pictures I had been trying to copy, the ones I saw everywhere on Ravelry and blogs, were not, in fact, of the seamless hybrid. They are almost all pictures of a variation on the seamless hybrid, called the seamless hybrid with shirt yoke. The kicker? Hardly any of these pictures mention that they’re of the variation. Even on Ravelry, where there’s a separate listing for the shirt yoke variation, most of the (several hundred) finished sweaters are categorized incorrectly as the plain vanilla seamless hybrid.

Here are pictures to illustrate what I’m talking about:

The seamless hybrid : note the vertical lines at the back

seamless hybrid with shirt yoke (shamelessly stolen from Brooklyn Tweed): note that the line is horizontal

Once I figured out what the sweater was supposed to look like, and with hubby’s blessing to do the vertical lines instead of horizontal, I managed to finish the yoke and chug through the hood. Then it was just a matter of grafting the underarms, blocking, and it was finished!

Hubby loves his sweater and is vastly appreciative of all the hard work that went into it. He’s worn it three or four times already and proudly told everyone he saw that his wife made it and it’s the best sweater he’s ever had.

Yes, he is a keeper.

The specs:

Pattern: My own, with (somewhat sketchy at times) help from Elizabeth Zimmermann.

Yarn: Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool. This was the only yarn I had in the stash in enough quantity. It worked out okay, although it’s a little scratchier than I normally like. But I washed the sweater in some cheap hair conditioner and it softened up nicely.

Notes: Gah. So happy this is done.

New Pattern: Europos Scarf!

My new pattern is the Europos Scarf, inspired by Barbara Walker’s interpretation of the famous “knitting” fragment discovered in the Indus River Valley around 250 A.D. The fragment was dated back thousands of years and was long thought to be the earliest example of knit fabric, but they later proved the technique used was actually nalbinding, not knitting at all.

There’s a fascinating Knitty article by Julie Theaker here that mentions the Dura-Europos fragment. Check it out if you’re interested!

Now that the history lesson’s out of the way, I can talk about the scarf, heh. The sample was really, really fun to knit–one of those designs where everything works the first time and the finished product actually looks better than what you saw in your head! The motif from Barbara Walker #2 included edge stitches to keep the piece rectangular, but I decided I liked the undulating shape without the edges (plus, it makes the scarf super-quick to knit, since you narrow down to only a few stitches between each “leaf”).

I should get bonus points for using "undulating" correctly.

I also changed the decreases, since the one BW specified looked sort of odd to me. I decided to go with a purl lifted increase (PLI) after swatching: new to me, but easy to work once you get the hang of it and looks pretty in the pattern! The scarf’s reversible, too–not exactly the same on both sides, but pretty either way.

This is apparently the only picture I took of the back. Sigh. You might have to take my word for it.

I used some pretty Rowan Cashsoft DK to knit the sample. My sister-in-law brought all the way from England for me as a birthday present last summer!

The scarf is perfect for warmer climes: a nice pop of color against a black coat, but not too warm or stifling. I think I’ll wear it a lot this winter!

The pattern for this scarf is available to purchase for $4.00 here.

FO Friday: Go ninja, go ninja, go!

I don’t have any new FOs this week (I did finish a large sweater–but it’s still blocking!), so I thought I’d talk about one I finished last month.

I made this little Michelangelo for my brother’s birthday. Believe me, it was a wrench to give it away….

Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the little nunchaku the husband made. They were ADORABLE. We stuck them in Mikey’s belt.

The specs:

Pattern: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Ravelry link).

Yarn: Vanna’s Choice in Chocolate, Mustard, and Olive (I know, I know… but it was cheap and available in the right colors); Ella Rae Extrafine Heathers in color 17.

Needles: US #6

Notes: The pattern linked above was perfect except for an odd tiny shell. I used a shell from one of the many generic turtle patterns around, and I think it turned out much better. I also added armbands.

I feel about this like I always do about toys or stuffies of any kind: I HATED making it, but I LOVE the finished product. I find toys ridiculously fiddly–all that tiny knitting, followed by trying to align everything properly, sew limbs in place without making it look like crap, and then somehow managing to stuff it evenly.

Maybe that’s why I tend to give them away. I don’t need a reminder of all that effort, heh.

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