Progress Report

I've just finished repeat six of Citron. This project has been on the back burner for a bit while I've been making baby things and finishing other projects - a scarf for my sister, and Emmaline. Well, Emmaline's not quite finished, or rather it is, but I might have to undo a bit and add in some increases, and use a different bind off. My friend Linda suggested an elastic, stretchy bind off in a recent comment that I think I'll try out on this, because aren't garments meant to be comfortable and not cut off your circulation from the hips down? I don't like the idea just straightaway ripping out rows until I think I've reached the right point, then making sure all the stitches are caught and aimed the right way. I think it's time for a lifeline! This will be the first time I've threaded one through stitches that aren't on the needle. I'm not sure how this works, so I had to look it up.


Anyway, back to Citron.

A late start...

I had big plans for this January; blogging, crafting, getting fit, trying new things, and generally living a wonderful life. I underestimated the impact that major tragedies in my friends lives would have on mine, and I have spent January mourning and comforting, getting sick, and watching the structure in my own life disappear as I lose sight of my goals.

I need to treat February as my fresh start. February is usually the toughest month for me. It's the bleakest month. No end to winter in sight, resolutions abandoned or broken, no more holidays for a long while (none that I celebrate anyway - we don't have to talk about that pulsating pink target in the middle of the month) and it's harder than ever to get out of bed and get things done.

Not only that, but it seems that the knitting callus on my left index finger is disappearing from lack of use. Come back! I didn't even know I had achieved a knitting callus! I can't imagine what else it would be from that I'm not doing at the moment...does reading cause calluses? I'm not doing much of that either.

I still have my yearly goal of reading 52 books in 52 weeks, but I'm off to a bad start this year.

Still, I have a bunch of knitting projects in the works, and am planning on spending the rest of February working on my knitting. I need to start and finish two items for a friend's baby shower in early March.
I'm making the Etanapipa - Snail hat in a wee size and Saartje's Bootees by Saartje de Bruijn. I've had both of these in my Ravelry queue since I learned to knit a few years back and haven't tried them until now becuase I was intimidated. Why? They aren't difficult items in complexity or difficulty. And they're small. It should take me a week or less for each item.


Citron update - I knit and knit and knit, and still I have not reached the end of the first ball of Malabrigo. I brought this project with me on my trip to Las Vegas, small, light, and not too complicated. I knit on it during my flight across the country, but was way too busy to knit a thing once I got to my destination. Still, I managed to knit 10 rows and listen to all of my downloaded podcasts from Sticks and String.

Other knitting updates and many more posts to follow. I have a bunch in draft form that are waiting for completion. Maybe this weekend...

Projects check in - late fall 2010

A few weeks ago I was sick and down for the count with the really bad cold that's been going around. My knitting friends tell me they are able to knit when sick, and I suppose I could probably manage some stockinette or garter stitch on a project, if I had one that was that simple.  I wish I spent more time working on knitting and other projects. When I'm sick I don't do much of anything, and when I feel fine I waste a lot of time on the internet or watching tv with knitting in my lap. Maybe I need to institute a rule that I can only watch tv if I'm actively knitting since I don't have any progress to show. I did try and knit while I was sick and realized later that I did have a stockinette hat in the round in progress, but instead had reached for my Lace Ribbon scarf - been in progress since, oh, May 16, 2009, according to my Ravelry notes.

Do I really knit that slowly? No. I have major startitis. It's disappointing that I can't seem to finish projects. Story of my life. REALLY. I think it might be time for a post about all of the 'in progress' projects and a run down of where they stand and why. Sound good?

I actually HAVE been working on some of these. Here's a quick list of what I've work on in the past month (fiberwise):

Babette - came out of hiding, looked at ALL the yarn. Started work on some in progress squares. Monday night 10/25 tried to start a new square and realized I can't remember how to start them. That's always been a stumbling block with this project, nothing new. Hate starting new squares.

Lace Ribbon scarf - this was next to the couch so I started working on it again 10/24. Have done 7 rows!

Citron - worked on at knitting group briefly 10/18. Realized I had a dropped stitch and panicked. Wasn't feeling good (impending monster cold) and set it aside with dropped stitch caught and marked. A big thanks to Jimmy who counted all 273 stitches and discovered that no, I didn't have any weird stitches going on and yes, just keep knitting. So, I've done another row, and put it down to work on

Black and White Pair, hat #2 - no excuse for this not being done other than monster cold. As I write this I am working on the i-cord stem of the hat, but stopped to post! I will definitely be able to follow up with another post on the finished product tomorrow!

Static Socks - probably 5 more rows knit because I was going through all my projects.

Emmaline - I stopped this because I reached the point in the armpit where I needed to continue on with the body, and the stitch count didn't add up. Now I've lost some weight and was thinking about ripping it out, but I think I will continue on and make the whole thing so at least I can say I've made myself a wearable garment. I was going to have to modify the belly area on the original pattern, but now I will knit it as written and see where I end up with the fit. Maybe I'll be finished by spring?

Wabenschal - I started this during my last flurry of startitis. I sort of like the pattern, but I am pretty sure I hate the yarn. Its scratchy and I can't think of anyone I could give it to who would be please to put this around their neck, so I'm going to move it to hibernation for now and probably frog it.
One project was in the current list, but...

Modified Twenny Dolla Sweater - officially frogged and put needles, yarn, etc back where they belong.


Posts coming up - an update on all my hibernating projects, sharing my new obsession craft, and reorganizing my craft bookshelf.

Black and White Hats

Little Xavier grew out of his blueberry hat, and I've had a request for a new hat, but this time with a matching one for mom, and this time, in black and white! So, Xavier's hat will be black on bottom, white on top, and Emily's hat will be white on bottom, black on top. I bought the yarns months ago but I'm seeing them in two weeks (!) so I'd better get knitting. I managed to make the 6 month hat in a week before, and that was with cotton yarn which was tougher to work with, so I'm hoping that I will be able to crank out these two hats. (holy run-on sentences, Batman!)

That means I won't be able to work on Citron OR my new socks, and once again I have way too many projects sitting around collecting dust.

Rav link for hat project: Black and White Hats

This week has been long and tiring, and I'm struggling with being hungry and getting workouts in at all. This weekend is full of activities - book group, party, outdoor music, and while I do want to go to all of them and see peple I'm just so tired. Maybe tonight I'll skip the workout and just do laundry, knit, take a nap, have dinner, wash dishes, reorganize my apartment...

Citron progress

I have finished Row 18 of the 5th section. The pattern calls for 5 sections of 20 rows and a border section of 12 rows. I am definitely doing two more sections. I will never wear it if I stop at this size. I know the pattern makes more of a shawlette, but if this thing will never cover my shoulders, I think I would fling it across the room and leave it there. Maybe if I knit every day...I'll be done before the snow flies! Two more sections is 40 more rows, and these are biiiig rows that get over 600 stitches across. Eeep!

I also want to pick up a project from last fall - a wedding gift of a cabled pillow for my sister that I lost momentum on as the wedding drew closer. I figure if I can finish it by her 1 year anniversary then I'm in the clear. And I think that switching from working on my lace weight Citron to a worsted weight project will make the rows fly by! If you happen to look at the project in Ravelry, I have more knit than shows on the project page. Honestly I do! I just haven't updated the photo. Which I will do. Tonight. Really.

Citron frustration

I was poking around on Ravelry looking at finished Citron shawls, and found poofus73's citron. She said it ended up looking like a tiny tea towel! That's exactly what I'm worried about. I am from healthy German stock and have the proportions to prove it. I don't want a big floppy shawl thing, but I also don't want to end up with a tea towel that I spent 6 months making (at this point) that doesn't look good and I won't wear out of the house. The shawl model on Knitty looks quite tiny and I can't see how that same size shawl on me will even come over my shoulders. I've now knit to the point where I am halfway done with the 5th and final section. Then there is a ruffle edge section which is 12 rows. I can sort of try it on now, but I certainly can't hold it AND see where it falls, let alone take a photo. I think there might have to be some photos taken at my knitting group tonight.

When I bought the yarn to make this shawl I bought two skeins of Malabrigo lace, planning on making it doubly big. I just don't want it TOO big. And I know it will stretch out a bit. Relax. Settle in to it's shape. So I don't want to go wild and add too many extra sections. I've seen some pictures of this shawl with anywhere from 5-9 sections. The thing is, in most of the photos, the shawl is laid out flat and NOT shown on a person. How do I know how big it turns out if people don't photograph themselves wearing it???

Hopefully photo of 5 full repeats to follow soon.

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?

Well I wasn't planning on...

Well I wasn't planning on blocking it. And it's going to drive me crazy. must be time to rip...iI'm only 8 rows in. better now than later.

Here is the beginning of my Citron shawl. I think I need tl start over. See the column on the right lf stktches that are bigger than the others? That means I have to redo, right?

Shawl sans spine in green

I was wandering around on Ravelry yesterday and wondered if Knitty had a new issue out for spring. Well no, they don't, but apparently I never looked at the Winter 2009 issue. In that issue I found my new project. Citron is a lovely little shawl/scarf with a ripple to the edge and some texture without really being lace. Sure, the pattern uses lacewight yarn, and knits up like lace, but the end result looks much more solid than a typical lace shawl. Here is the shawl on Ravelry.

I love the color used in the demo shawl, but when I got to Windsor they didn't have that in laceweight (lettuce, here on the right). Well, I found it in worsted and the color is much for yellow for me to wear anyway. Problem solved. Or so I thought, when I approached the Malabrigo lace basket and found two different greens and a light blue that all wanted to come home with me and become a shawl. I bought 2 skeins of Sapphire Green (in the middle). This is my first malabrigo purchase!! I'm excited, can you tell? The others in my knitting group rave about this yarn, and I fondle it every time someone brings a project with this yarn. I think it's time for me to make myself something decadent, that will be worn next to the skin, that will hopefully be my go to item. I bought some size 8 Addi lace needles, but I'll have to swatch and make sure that my isn't so tight that I need to up another needle size. The pattern calls for 6s, but I typically need to up two needle sizes.

Amy, if you're reading this, weren't you looking for a shawl pattern without a spine? I think this might be the one for you!