The handiness of hat twins

Posted on 04 March 2006 by Kris

I got bored with the second cable-and-bobble hat, so I started Odessa. I’d tried on Jessica‘s hat and decided that it was too short for my tastes. So instead of knitting for 5.5″ before the decreases, I knit 6″.

Unfortunately, that meant that I didn’t have enough yarn for all of the decrease rows…

…as I’d only bought the one ball specified in the pattern.

Needless to say, I was a bit annoyed. Obviously, I didn’t want to rip back and start the decreases earlier, because if I’d wanted a hat that short I would’ve stuck to the pattern completely as written. And who wants to buy an additional ball of yarn for just six rows? Certainly not me.

But then I remembered that Jess and I had picked out the same color of yarn when we were at Knitting in La Jolla, so I asked if she had any left. And she saved the day!

Okay, so she just saved the hat. Whatever. Close enough, right?

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March 2006 goals

Posted on 01 March 2006 by Kris

Yay, I win!

  1. Make those long-overdue FO posts – Done!
  2. Post more frequently – Done! (Though given that I only posted two entries last month and three the month before that, this wasn’t that hard…)
  3. Complete at least two tiers of the Forest Path Stole – Done!
  4. Work on at least one other WIP – Done! Granted, it was just one underarm seam and then a couple of rows for a toe sock, but that still counts, right?
  5. Start my mother’s cable-and-bobble hat – Done!

New goals this month:

  1. Finish Eris
  2. Finish Mom’s cable-and-bobble hat
  3. Finish at least one sock (either the second River Rapids sock, or a toe sock)
  4. Complete at least two tiers of the Forest Path Stole
  5. Re-start Channel Pullover
  6. Start Odessa

Regarding goal #1: It turns out that I’m not completely crazy and that I did try on the sleeves while working on the sweater. In fact, I even ripped and re-knit a sleeve because it didn’t fit. Jessica thinks that maybe it shrunk a bit in the wash, which I suppose is possible. I mean, I did wash my swatches, but maybe the water temperature was slightly different on the day I chucked the actual sweater in the machine?

In any case, there’s only so much blocking I can do, given that it’s a cotton/acrylic sweater. So I’m leaning toward re-knitting the sleeves. It’s going to suck, especially since I already wove in the ends and grafted the cuff and everything. But it won’t be completely impossible, and I think in the long run I’ll be happier with the sweater.

I’m probably going to take Kristen’s advice for the next few days – pretend that it’s OK and work on something else. I figure that if I stop obsessing about it for a week or so, I’ll be able to look at it with a clearer head and then make a final decision.

Edit: You know how overthinking something can make you overlook the obvious? Well, Kris suggested something that should have occured to me from the very beginning. I’ll try wearing Eris around the house for the next couple of evenings to see if that relaxes the sleeves enough. It might actually work, given how close the measurement already is.

Of course, this does mean that I have to seam the other underarm first…

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Socks, lace, and the color blue

Posted on 27 February 2006 by Kris

I forgot to mention: I’ve started being a social knitter again. I went to the Whistlestop the Sunday before last, and on Saturday, I went over to Kris’s to knit with her, Miyon, Marisa, Kristen, and Jess. Fun times! I really need to go to more knitting events.

I worked on the Forest Path Stole at the Whistlestop. I don’t have a new in-progress picture yet, but Nancy has a picture of me working on it. See, I haven’t abandoned it entirely!

But in more exciting news:

River Rapids socks! Not only are they socks, but they’re lace, and they’re blue! So how can I not love them?

I finished the first sock last week, and I made progress on the second while I was at Kris’s. No finished measurements are provided in the pattern, so I had to do some calculating first, but once I figured out that a tighter gauge would give me the appropriate size, I started flying through the knitting.

The tubular cast on looks gorgeous, but it’s nowhere near as elastic as I’d like – I’ll have to cast on with larger needles if I use this method again for socks. But I can get it on my foot and over my heel, at least, and it’s snug around the ankle.

The sock looks super narrow, but it really does stretch out enough to fit. I’m very happy with the finished one so far.

Edit: I forgot to post where I got the pattern from (Kristen’s comment just reminded me). River Rapids is a Sockbug pattern. It’s written for two circulars, but it’s easy enough to knit on DPNs instead.

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Not quite there yet

Posted on 26 February 2006 by Kris

It was bad enough when Jess was pestering me about Eris. But now that I have people I’ve never even met (like Natalie) and half of the San Diego knitters blog ring wondering why the heck I haven’t finished yet, I figured I should finally get those underarms seamed before I had the rest of the blog ring follow suit.

So I seamed one underarm. Sort of – I didn’t weave in the ends so that I could pick it out if necessary. Then I tried it on to see if I’d done a decent enough job or if I needed to do it over.

There’s a slight hole near the end of the seam, but that’s an easy enough fix. I have an even bigger problem to deal with…

I’m about 99.9% sure that the upper arm is tighter than I want it to be. I certainly can’t pull it on over a long-sleeved shirt, so I think I have a bit of a problem here. How I failed to notice this before is beyond me, especially since I could swear I tried on one sleeve before continuing with the other, but it happened. So I basically have two choices: I either resign myself to wearing Eris only with tank tops, or I frog and re-knit the sleeves.

Needless to say, I’m less than thrilled with either option, and I am kicking myself for not having paid better attention while I was working on this.

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Couch potato

Posted on 23 February 2006 by Kris

I haven’t finished a book since February 4. I haven’t even read much in the past couple of weeks. While I normally use the TV just for DVD viewing, I turn into a complete couch potato at certain times. And the Winter Olympics are one of those times.

I should be back to my normal bookwormy self next week, though.

1919 is getting more difficult for me to read, mainly because there are so many characters in U.S.A.. 700+ pages into the “trilogy,” I’m having a damned hard time keeping everyone straight, particularly since most of them aren’t remarkably interesting in and of themselves. The indistinctness helps create the social portrait – some of them are so vaguely defined, it’s easy to see them as an “everyman.” But it makes it harder for me to remember where they fit or how exactly their stories are progressing.

The Sheltering Sky is quite a bit easier, and I’d be done with it already if I just stopped sitting in front of the TV. I haven’t gotten too far into this book yet (I’m only a few chapters in), but I fly through it when I actually pick it up. I like it so far but can’t quite pinpoint why.

Hopefully I’ll finish at least one of these books by the end of the month. But we’ll see.

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