Saturday, May 22, 2010
Just spent 2 hours digging
Just spent 2 hours digging away at grass and giant roots. now have a plot approx 33in x 6 feet. that's probably enough for today.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Trying on Emmaline
Emmaline take 1 - 05.15.2010
Originally uploaded by bareblueskin
I've used up one ball of yarn and started the second. I am 4 repeats in of the K1/Raglan Increase rounds and trying on Emmaline to see where the arms are. Are the markers that divide off the sleeve stitches supposed to meet under my arm? Is that how I know if it's long enough? For the large I need to do 8 rounds. I tried to take better pictures, but it's hard to hold the sleeve markers in place for the picture on my own. I guess that means they're not in the right place yet!
Proceed carefully
~Okay, I wrote this post over two weeks ago (looks like it was means for April 30), and when I posted it the middle bit was chopped out. I've been meaning to fix this post and rewrite it, but at this point I'm just going to fudge it.~
I always thought I was good at following directions and reading everything through clearly. Building bookshelves, a website, doing my taxes, catching important but minimally mentioned plot points, that's me.
Building a knitted garment, however, is not something my mind seems to want to do. Take for instance my early mishap with the Citron shawl. Having gotten through the strange 'knit a sort of square thing' with a lot of help from Amber (who says this cast on for shawls is used quite regularly) I jumped in. Knitting merrily along,
Row 1 [WS]: K3, place marker, p3, place marker, k3.
Row 2 [RS]: K3, slip marker, [m1, k1] three times, m1, slip marker, k3. 13 sts.
I get to the instruction Rows 3-5: Work in pattern as set, maintaining first and last 3 sts in garter st and working sts between markers in stockinette st. No problem. That means keep doing the pattern set up in Rows 1 and 2. I knit Row 6.
Row 6 [RS]: K3, slip marker, [m1, k1] seven times, m1, slip marker, k3. 21 sts. That instruction came after the section I had just knitted. Does this apply to the whole pattern? It doesn't seem to...but if I apply that to everything, then yes, the counts do come out properly. I ripped it out, started over, followed the instructions, and now I am much further along. Okay, further along for me. I am now halfway through the second section. Ok, that could have been a misinterpretation of instructions, but how about what happened last Thursday night?
What??? After this increase I am to have 21 stitches? I don't remember now now many I did have, but if I was going along increasing, starting with 13 stitches, plus 4, plus 8?, plus ??, so I had 40 or so stitches instead of 21. But I didn't notice that 21sts and I kept going.
Rows 7-11: Work in pattern.
By now I had WAAAY too many stitches, and I was looking at the counts, trying to figure out what I had done. A little further down in the pattern, it said
SHAWL BODY
Note: In all directions that follow, “work in pattern” means to work in stockinette st, maintaining first and last 3 sts in garter st as set.
~Here's where the bit I wrote disappeared. Crucial right? Anyway, figured it out, thought either the pattern/pattern writer/myself was having a bad day. Ripped it out completely, started again, which gave me practice with the odd casting on for this project, and ta-dah! I am now halfway through the second round of instructions.~
By the way, the white strings are dental floss lifelines so that I can rip back to the beginning of the section if necessary.
I was watching the finale of Project Runway (disappointing) and decided to dig in and make some progress on Emmaline since I had one and a half rows done. I was stuck on the row with RLI - right lifted increase - since I knit lefty and need to reverse the way I do the stitch. The instructions say:
RLI (Right Lifted Increase): Use the right needle to pick up the stitch below the next stitch on the left needle. Place it on the left needle, then knit into it. 1 stitch has been increased.
Using this increase helps give the bulky yarn structure. I refer to the close up photo of the lovely, tight raglan seam of Emmaline. It looks like two solid lines of stitches drawn diagonally near the shoulder.
And what did I do? Not that. M1 instead, which leaves a gaping hole beneath the added stitch. R-i-p.
After searching out instruction online, I started again. I now have about 10 rows of Emmaline so far, and I still don't think my RLIs look like the picture, but I have to keep going. It's the perfect weather to wear this now, and if I don't hurry up, it will be too hot. Maybe I should spend the weekend knitting?
I always thought I was good at following directions and reading everything through clearly. Building bookshelves, a website, doing my taxes, catching important but minimally mentioned plot points, that's me.
Building a knitted garment, however, is not something my mind seems to want to do. Take for instance my early mishap with the Citron shawl. Having gotten through the strange 'knit a sort of square thing' with a lot of help from Amber (who says this cast on for shawls is used quite regularly) I jumped in. Knitting merrily along,
Row 1 [WS]: K3, place marker, p3, place marker, k3.
Row 2 [RS]: K3, slip marker, [m1, k1] three times, m1, slip marker, k3. 13 sts.
I get to the instruction Rows 3-5: Work in pattern as set, maintaining first and last 3 sts in garter st and working sts between markers in stockinette st. No problem. That means keep doing the pattern set up in Rows 1 and 2. I knit Row 6.
Row 6 [RS]: K3, slip marker, [m1, k1] seven times, m1, slip marker, k3. 21 sts. That instruction came after the section I had just knitted. Does this apply to the whole pattern? It doesn't seem to...but if I apply that to everything, then yes, the counts do come out properly. I ripped it out, started over, followed the instructions, and now I am much further along. Okay, further along for me. I am now halfway through the second section. Ok, that could have been a misinterpretation of instructions, but how about what happened last Thursday night?
What??? After this increase I am to have 21 stitches? I don't remember now now many I did have, but if I was going along increasing, starting with 13 stitches, plus 4, plus 8?, plus ??, so I had 40 or so stitches instead of 21. But I didn't notice that 21sts and I kept going.
Rows 7-11: Work in pattern.
By now I had WAAAY too many stitches, and I was looking at the counts, trying to figure out what I had done. A little further down in the pattern, it said
SHAWL BODY
Note: In all directions that follow, “work in pattern” means to work in stockinette st, maintaining first and last 3 sts in garter st as set.
~Here's where the bit I wrote disappeared. Crucial right? Anyway, figured it out, thought either the pattern/pattern writer/myself was having a bad day. Ripped it out completely, started again, which gave me practice with the odd casting on for this project, and ta-dah! I am now halfway through the second round of instructions.~
By the way, the white strings are dental floss lifelines so that I can rip back to the beginning of the section if necessary.
RLI (Right Lifted Increase): Use the right needle to pick up the stitch below the next stitch on the left needle. Place it on the left needle, then knit into it. 1 stitch has been increased.
Using this increase helps give the bulky yarn structure. I refer to the close up photo of the lovely, tight raglan seam of Emmaline. It looks like two solid lines of stitches drawn diagonally near the shoulder.
And what did I do? Not that. M1 instead, which leaves a gaping hole beneath the added stitch. R-i-p.
After searching out instruction online, I started again. I now have about 10 rows of Emmaline so far, and I still don't think my RLIs look like the picture, but I have to keep going. It's the perfect weather to wear this now, and if I don't hurry up, it will be too hot. Maybe I should spend the weekend knitting?
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