End of the stems

Posted on 06 November 2005 by Kris

I finally finished chart 4 of Lotus Blossom.

It’s still not the most fun project I’ve worked on, but it’s significantly less boring now that I’ve finished the stems. I may actually finish it within the month, since I enjoy working on it more now.

Except I think I’ll have only used half of the yarn I had on hand, so now I’ll have to figure out what to do with the rest. I have no ideas whatsoever. And since the yarn’s too contrasty for anything but the simplest lace, and simple lace is boring, I’m not looking forward to the prospect of knitting something else with this yarn.

Grr. I swear the colors didn’t look that contrasty on my monitor when I ordered it. But, lesson learned for next time, I guess.

Posted in Knitting | Tagged | 1 Comment

November 2005 goals

Posted on 01 November 2005 by Kris

I think I was a little overambitious last month…

  1. Finish tipless gloves – Done!
  2. Finish Eris – Not done. So close, and yet so, so far.
  3. Work on FPS and get through at least tier 10 – Not done; I got to tier 9.
  4. Work on Lotus Blossom and get through at least chart 4 – Not done. I started chart 4…
  5. Work on Shimmer – Not done. I’m probably going to abandon this, actually.
  6. Start toe socks – Done! Barely.
  7. Start Channel Pullover – Done!
  8. Start cable-and-bobble hat – Not done.
  9. Start cabled purse – Done! One gift started, two more to go.

In my defense, I must say that if it weren’t for that crazy massive overtime project that came up at work last week, I would have achieved at least two more goals.

I still suck though.

Anyway, this month’s goals:

  1. Make more realistic goals
  2. Finish Eris
  3. Finish Lotus Blossom
  4. Finish cable-and-bobble hat
  5. Finish cabled purse
  6. Work on FPS and get through at least tier 15.
  7. Work on Channel Pullover
  8. Work on toe socks
  9. Start golf club covers

I refuse to repeat last month’s dismal goal achievement. :-P

Posted in Knitting | Leave a comment

Knit a sleeve, rip a sleeve

Posted on 25 October 2005 by Kris

I was doing so well with Eris. Really, I was! I got the body done, and flew through half of a sleeve, and figured, “hey, I’m on track, I can totally finish knitting this sweater by the end of the month!”

And then I tried the sucker on and realized, to my horror, that I hadn’t calculated ease for the sleeves properly.

So, I ripped back.

Chances of making that completion goal? Slim at best.

The problem is, I have short, not-so-skinny arms – which aren’t accounted for in the pattern. I could just stop knitting when I got down to the right part, except then the decreases would be a bit off. Sure, my arms are short, but they still have normal human proportions – if I didn’t adjust the number of decreases accordingly, my wrists would be swimming in knit fabric.

Grrarr.

So yes, I have been knitting. I haven’t been posting a lot this month because most of my progress is fairly boring, but I’ve been working on everything, at least.

Posted in Knitting | Tagged | 3 Comments

Fannish insanity

Posted on 11 October 2005 by Kris

I am tempted to knit myself a Season 16 Doctor Who scarf.

Yes, I know it’s ugly. Yes, I know it’s impractical and unnecessary. Yes, I know it’s a boring knit. And yes, I know I’m not even that big of a fan of Doctor Who.

But I don’t care.

Okay, so I don’t love Doctor Who like I love DS9 or B5. But I do like what I’ve seen of it – I watched PBS (re)broadcasts fairly often while I was in high school. They were mostly of the Fourth Doctor, and I started watching more regularly when they got to Season 16, hence why I want that season’s scarf.

And! I distinctly remember staring at that scarf during episodes and wondering how the heck someone managed to have the patience to make that thing… and why the heck someone would try in the first place. I’m the craft-loving daughter of a crocheter, after all. I knew how much effort those things required. So though I didn’t know how to knit at the time, I knew that the Doctor Who scarf wasn’t exactly a quick project.

I wanted to understand that knitter’s insanity. And so in some strange, twisted way, that scarf is partially responsible for my wanting to learn how to knit.

That, and I rather like it anyway. No accounting for (lack of) taste, after all.

So I think that, someday, I’ll get around to making that ridiculous thing. It’ll take me forever (even with all the modifications I have in mind). But that’s okay. It can be worked on during anime and foreign film showings, at least.

Posted in Knitting | Leave a comment

No asymmetry here

Posted on 07 October 2005 by Kris

I’ve been flying through the body of Eris, because it’s a great project to work on during events like anime showings and SnBs. Last Thursday evening, I finished the stockinette section and started working on the cabled hem…

…and then had to frog a bunch of rows, because it turned out that the body was about an inch longer than I’d wanted. Rarrrr.

Luckily, the second attempt was not so ill-fated. It’s still a bit on the long side, but I like it much better (and I got positive feedback on the length at the shindig, so I decided it was fine).

I finished the front earlier this week, but haven’t been able to take decent pictures before now. (I’ve been working overtime lately, so by the time I get home, natural light is pretty nonexistent.) Not that this picture is great, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the ones I took a couple of days ago.

Anyway, here’s what the hem looks like:

The back hem is currently in progress.

In the pattern, the cabled detail is asymmetrical – it’s only on the right side. Which I wasn’t a big fan of. So, I reworked it to feature the detail on both sides. This satisfies both my desire for symmetry and my newly realized love for cabling. (Seriously, the cables for this project are so much fun, I’m excited about working extras.)

And holy crap, my gauge has changed a lot since I started this project. Before I started, I swatched and figured that I needed size 5s for the cables and 6s for the body. So I finished the collar on 5s, but then I reswatched and realized that I now needed 4s for the body. And then I realized that I now needed to use 3s for the rest of the cables.

Yeah, I don’t get it either.

Posted in Knitting | Tagged | Leave a comment