Sunday Knitting

So I was knitting along on my Thyri pullover, paying more attention to the episodes of Orange is the New Black that I was watching, and suddenly I was at the end and the thing was about four miles long.

Seriously, wtf?

Pretty much the entire torso was a series of decreases and increases, so there was no continuous measuring to see if I had reached the correct length or not. And based on my row gauge, I even slipped in a few extra rows between some of the increases/decreases to make up for it. Not enough to account for this crazy length though. I don't know what happened.

Thank goodness it was knit top down. Tunic is not a good look on me. So I will be ripping back several inches and then re-knitting the hem. 

Here I'm pointing at the spot where I'd like the sweater to stop.

Otherwise, it's an ok sweater. The yarn is lovely, and I like the long sleeves and thumbholes. I wish the sleeves weren't so tight (are other knitters plagued by this problem or are my arms just enormous?) and there's an awkward seam in the yoke that I think is from swapping between one skein of yarn and another (hand-dyed is lovely in theory, but not so much in practice.) This will likely be a cozy lounge-around-the-house sweater rather than a work or socializing type sweater.

I will post again when it is actually finished to my satisfaction.

Sunday Knitting

I give up. Everything about Pianissimo is wrong. It's so wrong, and I'm so annoyed about it, I can't even get a decent picture.

Look at it just sitting there, being all the wrong measurements.

It's supposed to be both longer and wider than it is, and no amount of coaxing has helped to get it there. I did manage to stab myself pretty hard with a pin, just to reinforce the pain of this failed project.

The thing is, I did everything right. Before beginning, I made a swatch and washed and blocked it to determine which needles would get me the correct gauge. I measured each part as I went along - and I was sure to take it off the needles to do so, to ensure the accuracy of my measurements. Given all of this careful planning, when I finished it should have all added up to the correct length, because that is how math works. It is not, however, how knitting works.

I knew this pattern was going to be a problem. There are so many different pieces, no way to try them on as you go, and the pattern is something like 18 pages long. (Oh, and there are no page numbers, just to make it more fun.) The first part I knit was the bottom trim, and it looked nothing like the picture in the pattern. I should have stopped right there.

This yarn is really lovely so I'll have to find another use for it (with or without the part I've already used. I'm not sure if I'll able to salvage it if I try to rip it out.)

In the meantime, socks. Good old socks. I can always depend on you.

Sunday Knitting

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we swatch.

What the hell is this? Is it a sweater dress?
It is not supposed to be a sweater dress.

I think I mentioned that I didn't swatch for this, but despite my poor planning it was going fine. Honestly. It actually fit pretty well when I finished it and tried it on.

Then I washed it and blocked it. Which is why we not only make a gauge swatch, but we also wash it and block it. So we know how the finished garment may change when it, too, is washed and blocked. So there are no unfortunate surprises.

Never have I ever had a sweater grow lengthwise. They always, if anything, get wider and shorter. Oh, if only I could add some of this length to some of my too-short sweaters.

Because this, this is not flattering.

Hello, here is my enormous butt!

LESSON LEARNED.

But do you want to hear the good news? This sweater was knit from the top down, which means I can actually undo it from the bottom and rip out several inches of butt-enhancing fabric and get this craziness under control. It's a little more work, sure, but it's not the catastrophe it could have been.

Wish me luck.

Sunday Knitting

The Livingstone Cardigan is finished, but has fallen short of my expectations.

See how concerned and disappointed I look? (Not to mention my bizarre outsized shoulders and tiny head. So unfortunate.)

The back looks fairly good.

But there is something very wrong with the whole collar area.

This is the picture in the pattern:

Look at that lovely wide collar that gracefully flips down over her shoulders! I don't think it's possible to use these instructions and make a collar that looks like that. I looked at other people's versions of this sweater on Ravelry and they ALL have collars that look like mine. Not one is like this.

There are a couple of things going on here. The other pieces don't come very close to the neckline, so the way the collar sits means that it isn't in a good spot to fold back that far. I also just don't think it's wide enough.

The collar is knit separately by casting on a lot of stitches, knitting a bit in ribbing, doing some short-row shaping, then back to just regular ribbing until it's a certain width. This means you don't know if it fits the sweater until it's done and you sew it together. I had some trouble fitting it into my sweater. It was the right length (when slightly stretched) but the short-row part didn't really line up to the neckline correctly. I don't know if this is a gauge issue or something else.

I probably should have done what others did and pick up stitches instead of knitting it separately, but I wouldn't have known how to do the short-row shaping from that direction. (And anyhow, theirs still came out with the skimpy collars that don't fold over nearly so far.)

Other than the issues with the collar, the pattern was pretty clear and easy to follow. It's from the Winter 2011 issue of Interweave Knits (I bought the standalone pattern online.) I used Plymouth Encore Chunky Tweed and size 10.5 needles.

It seemed to be going so well, and now I feel rather disheartened by the whole thing. To make myself feel better, I bought  some purple chunky yarn and started on a hat, mittens, and cowl. This is sure to give me some almost-instant gratification!

Second sleeve, slight setback

I made a ridiculous error on my second sleeve. You know how you are knitting along, not having read the entire pattern all the way through first, and suddenly you come to the words "At the same time" and realize you were supposed to be keeping track of how many cable pattern repeats you've been doing? Well, that's not exactly what happened because I've already knit one sleeve so nothing here should be a surprise to me.

On the first sleeve I read far enough ahead to know there was a "same time" situation. It was a confusing one, I'll admit, because at first it was unclear what it was at the same time AS. I started the sleeve with its cable pattern, I did the short row sleeve caps, and then began the decreases. So when it said "at the same time" to work the cable chart a certain number of times before starting the second cable, at first I thought it meant to count the pattern repeats since I started the decreases. It seems obvious now that that makes no sense, but usually "at the same time" means at the same time as the last thing you were just doing. But I soon understood it meant ALL the pattern repeats on the sleeve and thought, how fantastic that I figured this out now before screwing up.

Then I started the second sleeve and immediately forgot everything from the first. So I'm knitting happily along and one evening I thought you know, I'm supposed to start a second cable at some point. I wonder when? Turns out the answer was: about 30 rows ago.

So commenced the crying and gnashing of teeth and confusing math exercises, after which I very carefully ripped out a large section of sleeve - not easy when cables and decreases are involved. The most frustrating part of it all is that it was so unnecessary. There was no reason for me to make such a mistake when I had already successfully completed one sleeve without incident. Had it happened on the first sleeve it would have been forgivable.

But all that's over now and the sleeve has been completed. All that's left on this baby is the neckline and I'll have myself a new sweater.

A break

The Practical Procrastination Pullover may need to be renamed the Perpetually Perplexing Pullover. Recently I finished the waist increases only to find that I had the wrong number of stitches. It is like déjà vu all over again. Currently I can’t bring myself to sit down and figure out what went wrong this time. I think it may be cursed, just like the Madelinetosh sock yarn.

Upon discovering my unfortunate pullover situation, I did what anyone would do, and cast on for a new pair of socks.

These are the Glynis socks from Cookie A.’s first book, Sock Innovation. They are the very first pattern in the book. I did not waste time choosing a pattern, instead throwing caution to the wind and casting on for the first one that looked plausibly compatible with the yarn.

I purchased the Lorna’s Laces on my trip to Webs that was probably a year and a half ago now. It is my first time using Lorna’s Laces and I’m excited to finally try it out after hearing so many lovely things about it. The colors are beautiful and I’m happy that it’s so nicely variegated, and not pooling into big ugly globs of color like so many other sock yarns. I’m also happy that it contains nylon because I’ve gotta tell you, people, I am getting sick of darning the socks and I’m hoping the nylon will help prevent holes for forming so quickly in the first place.

I am loving them so far.

A Lesson

Or, The Importance of Reading all the Words in the Pattern

The good news is that I almost finished my Procrastination Pullover, with the minor exception of the short sleeves. The bad news is that I screwed up bad enough and early enough that most of it needs to be ripped out.

This is a bottom up raglan, which means that as you approach the chest area, you need to cast on for the sleeves, adding extra stitches to the round, that you will later pick up and knit to finish the sleeves. In this pattern, the instructions read “Slip next 6 stitches on waste yarn, provisionally cast on 42 stitches for the first sleeve, work to 3 stitches before second side market, slip next 6 onto waste yarn, provisionally cast on 42 stitches for the second sleeve, work to end.”

Somehow I missed the very important word “provisionally,” and yes, I realize that it appears there twice so I have no excuse. When I got to those parts I just cast on the 42 stitches using the backwards loop method and continued on. Then I finished the body of the sweater and decided to read ahead to the sleeve instructions, which begin by saying to undo the provisionally cast-on sleeve stitches. Whoopsie.

Photographic evidence of non-provisionally cast-on sleeve stitches:


At this point I did what anyone would do and just shoved the whole damn sweater in my basket and started working on my Whisper Cardigan instead, but this problem will eventually need to be faced. Sooner rather than later, given that we are now moving into fall, the season in which I was planning to wear this sweater.

I considered whether I could just pick up the stitches and knit the garter edging, skipping the 3 rows of stockinette (which would make my error quite visible). However, there are some other issues with this sweater that I wouldn’t mind rectifying.

For instance, despite adding a bit to the length, it is still too short.


I don’t think I accounted for this much horizontal stretch, which consequently makes it shrink vertically.

Additionally, I didn’t see the part of the instructions describing how to round off the edges of the neckline before finishing it (again with not reading the pattern thoroughly). So ripping back and re-knitting may make a lot of improvements that result in a more wearable garment. I’m trying to be positive about this.

It IS a quick and easy knit and after all I do have a vacation coming up soon. If I have to re-knit a whole damn sweater, surely some of the sting will be taken out of it if I’m doing it in Europe, right?

This Yarn Is Cursed

I have tried and tried to find a pattern that will work with my skein of Madelinetosh yarn in "Bearded Iris," but no matter what I do it pools into big gobs of purpliness and separate big gobs of yellowyness. I am shocked to look through my old posts and see that I haven’t written about this ongoing and apparently futile struggle. But I have been documenting it photographically so I will summarize for you now.

First I tried the Herringbone Rib pattern from Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn. This pattern was one of the reasons I bought this book – it is so lovely, but not with this yarn.

Cleverly, I thought that with a different size needle it may not pool the same. I was right, it pooled in a slightly different way.

It was a bit less blotchy and more like a thick zigzagging stripe, but still not acceptable.

Determined not to give up, next I tried a simple rib pattern.

And you can see how well THAT turned out. I'm mystified about why I knit so far before admitting defeat. (I was probably watching Pride & Prejudice or some equally long and distracting movie.)

I shoved the sock in a bag for a while until several months later I was feeling masochistic again. I went back to Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn and tried a pattern called Rib Fantastic, which allegedly "swirls the colors around." Surely that is what I need!

The colors were not sufficiently swirled. The other side of the sock, as you might expect, is primarily purple.

Finally, convinced that much more abuse would render the yarn completely unknittable, I ripped back to the cuff and continued in stockinette.

So bland, so boring, but these lopsided stripes are the most acceptable look I’ve gotten from this yarn so far.

What were the good people at Madelinetosh thinking when they designed this colorway? Do they not test knit their yarn? Or is the goal for it to simply look nice in the skein? Perhaps they don’t even think ahead to the possibility that someone may want to knit something out of it. I can’t think of another explanation as to why they would put such beautiful colors together in a way that looks so clumsy and unpleasant when you try to make it into something.

Peplum of vexation

Well. I have completed the lacy peplum on my cardigan, and I’m sorry to report that it is fraught with problems. I shouldn't blame the peplum itself, of course, when fault actually lies with the chart. It is a very simple chart and the errors aren’t until the end, but that may have made it even more frustrating. There I was knitting along, almost at the end, and all of a sudden – stymied!

It is a 20-row chart, and on row 17 I realized that something was horribly wrong. The number of stitches I had on my needles did not match the chart. It was only off by one, but it was the same for every repeat of the lace pattern (6 total) so I was sure the problem was not me making the same error 6 times. I studied the chart and, sure enough, based on the previous rows, the stitch count for row 17 was incorrect. So I just winged it, because it was rather minor and I was SO close to the end.

The next problem was that in rows 17 and 19 each lace repeat begins and ends with a yarn over – that means there are places where there are two YOs in a row, resulting in a big gaping hole. Intentional? Who knows.

As I studied my knitting, a third issue became apparent. The eyelets made from all those YOs are supposed to make nice even diagonal lines and they do not – they are staggered in groups of 2 eyelets on top of each other. It is very difficult to see, but trust me - each of the eyelets you see has another directly below it. If I pull gently on the fabric, they become more visible, and probably will with blocking too.


The picture in the book clearly shows lovely rows of 10 eyelets, all perfectly diagonal as they were intended.


But when I looked on Ravelry, every single finished version of this sweater looked like mine – a veritable stairstep of eyelets stacked in pairs in such a way that when you don’t look closely it looks like a diagonal line of just 5 eyelets. Not one looked like the sweater pictured in the book.


I can live with how it looks, but I'm not at all happy about the fact that the peplum on the original sweater was obviously not knit from the same chart published in the book. This is all especially disappointing because Fitted Knits has been out for a few years and an errata is available – but it contains nothing about this chart. This is also one of the most popular patterns from the book, so it is even more frustrating that corrections haven’t been provided.

Nevertheless, the sweater is coming out well. Luckily the peplum is just a small part of the sweater that will be down by my waist and therefore not very noticeable. (Except by anyone who is reading this post right now and will consequently spot my faulty eyelets immediately.) I’m hoping it is finished soon because I’ve really been wanting to wear it – the weather is perfect for a short-sleeved cardigan right now!

Christmas FAIL

I have screwed these socks up so badly that even the pictures came out crappy.


That is a solid month of work right there, and it is only half a sock. I wouldn't have even come close to finishing the pair by Christmas. Yesterday I had Eric try the sock on (with his eyes closed) and he couldn't get it past his ankle.

So that is reason #37 why knitting argyle socks is a bad idea. You cannot try them on as you go! Oh sure, you can try to wrap the unseamed piece around your calf but it is not accurate and will only result in heartache when you actually sew the damn thing together.

Oh, and look how wonky the seam came out:


Seaming can be difficult enough, but for this project it must be done in such a way that the seam only eats a half a stitch on each side rather than a whole stitch. This is very difficult to do, especially if your edge stitches are as distorted as mine are.

I'm fighting the urge to launch into a diatribe about how I should start planning Christmas crafts in July, which I say every year and never actually do. Inevitably I always spend the first two weeks of December in a panic when I should instead be lounging around watching Christmas specials, listening to carols, and drinking minty hot chocolate. I swear, next year it will be different...

Anyhow, I can't save Christmas, but still need to do something about this sock. My options appear to be:

a) Find new pattern and start over (though I looked for AGES to find a men's argyle sock pattern with seams in a more sensible location than the bottom of the foot)

b) Use same pattern but redo chart for larger number of stitches (I am not sure how to do such a thing)

c) Finish it for me because it is probably my size, though I don't actually want a pair of argyle socks in these colors

d) Burn it and never speak of it again

What do you think?

Deja Vu

My sock looks almost the same as last time you saw it. But, surprise! I have done lots of work on it since then.

I have not mentioned here the chaos that has been ruling my life for the last month or so, and which has finally ended along with my job. It was impossible to concentrate on anything, hence the tragedy that befell my sock (and the fact that I'm reading the horrid Twilight series rather than something that is actually worth my time, but that is another matter.)

Two weeks ago, mid-crisis, I went to knitting group because...how relaxing! Knitting! With lovely, inspiring people who are also knitting! By about halfway through the evening I was getting close to the heel of my sock and realized that in my recent distraction I hadn't tried it on yet. Even once! So I pulled off my shoe and sock (and that's another thing - why am I still forced to wear socks at this point in the so-called summer?) and with a flourish, brought my sock-in-progress over my toes and proceeded to pull....and tug....and swear....and couldn't get it over my heel.

So I ripped it all out, worked on my Coraline swatch, and looked at some knitting books until it was time to go home. The next day I restarted it on larger needles and have been trying it on about, oh, every ten minutes. Just to make sure.

Leyburn heel and beyond

Last week I mentioned some trouble with the heel of my Leyburn sock. The pattern says to make a short-row heel, but mine always come out with holes in them so I decided to try a toe-up heel flap construction, based on the instructions in Sensational Knitted Socks (which is totally my sock bible!) The odd thing is that the Leyburns are constructed in such a way that you have many more instep stitches than heel stitches, rather than dividing them in half as usual. I wasn't sure how it would come out, but I followed the SKS instructions anyhow - not exactly because my stitch count was different and I needed a larger number of heel flap rows, but it seemed to work out pretty well. I've never made a toe-up heel flap before, and in the middle of this one I learned on Ravelry that there's another more sensible-sounding way to do it, but I stuck with these instructions anyhow. When all was said and done and the heel was formed and the gusset properly decreased, the sock fit AND had the correct number of stitches, which was nothing short of miraculous!


Now, all I have to do is continue on my merry way, knitting the quilted lattice pattern in the round for the rest of the sock.

But.

Let me just say a few things about the Leyburn Sock pattern. It's not exactly a pattern as such; it's more of a stitch pattern with general guidelines about how to make a sock with that stitch pattern. There aren't detailed instructions for the toe or heel (instead it says "make a short row heel" and leaves it at that). More importantly, it doesn't give different instructions for knitting the stitch pattern in the round, which is where my current difficulties lie. (It does have a note about adjustments for row 5 when knitting in the round, but I haven't made it to row 5 yet.)

I suspected that perhaps I shouldn't begin the first round exactly the way the instructions say to, but then I did a little math and it seemed to come out right. But no.


Do you see that little row of upraised arms at the very top? (I know it is hard to see, but trust me.) They should all be shifted to the left or right a few stitches so they form X's with the row below. I have to undo those 4 rows and figure out how to fix them. It's possible I was simply supposed to start the round elsewhere, but I don't actually know. It's a little complicated because the stitch pattern involves slipping 5 stitches at once with the yarn in front to make a float, and you can't just start a round in the middle of that.

I'm a little frustrated with the pattern, but it WAS free so I can't complain. Despite the difficulties I'm having, I love how the sock is coming out and that is the only reason I'm still sticking with it. It's worth it!

Also? I think spring is here.


These will (hopefully) become string beans and pumpkins.

The fig tree is coming out of dormancy too.


Is that enough green for St. Patrick's Day?

Hoppin' Down the Bunny Trail

Considering this for Easter?

First, please consider this:

Futon, destroyed.


Yes, this is a library book.


Lovely black chair from Ikea, apparently tasty.


Magazines, borrowed never to be returned.


At least this part doesn't show when the boot is zipped.


Three consecutive issues of Interweave Knits.


Vintage SciFi book, expensive because of the previously excellent condition.

Not pictured: computer cord chewed through in 2 places, new computer cord already chewed and taped, pee spots on the hardwood floors, and one extremely harrassed cat.

If you're prepared for the destruction and want a rabbit anyhow, good luck and enjoy your bunny! But if your possessions are important to you, think long and hard first. And keeping them caged isn't the answer - would you keep a cat in a cage? (If you answered yes, I hope you don't have pets. Or children for that matter.)

Rabbits aren't for everyone. Animal shelters are full of them. Now you know why.

Hats, from the top

It makes sense to knit hats starting at the top, so that you can try them on as you go. This way you can be sure that you don't end up with a hat that's too short, freezing your ears, or too long, covering your eyes. In theory, anyway. In reality, knitting hats top-down is difficult in its own way. I'm using the pattern from The Knitting Man(ual), which is more of a general guideline, and one that isn't working out well for me.

The book says to increase every other round "until hat fits head circumference." The problem with this is that you can't tell if it fits your head circumference because it's just the TOP of the hat and you can't try on a hat with no sides. You can set it atop your head, but that is not very informative. I've started two different hats, ripped back, re-started, done some math and still I'm ending up with hats which seem too large.

Here is the first, made with Sublime yarn, a very soft extrafine merino:



The gauge on the bottom part of the hat, after the increases, came out larger then at the top. My options are to rip back far enough to rid the hat of some of the increases, or to rip back until just after the increases and switch to a smaller size needle. I'm just frustrated that I did a lot of calculations to make this come out the right size, yet it continued to grow after I finished increasing.

The second hat, made with Classic Yarns Cashsoft Baby DK (I think this is from Rowan) is still in progress and a bit more promising.



I ribbed it so it would be stretchy, thus accomodating different sizes better. This may actually work. It feels loose on me, but not terribly, and I may make it long enough to have a folded-up brim which should make it more snug.

Adding a pattern during increasing is tricky, and may be one reason for the seeming unpopularity of top-down hat patterns, but I like how it looks.


It's a little messier than I'd like it to look (especially the very top) but in general I like the look of the ribs sprouting off one another. This is a great prototype for the top-down cabled hat I've been planning to make for myself for a while now.

These hats are especially difficult as I'm making them for my mother whose head is larger than mine, but she will be losing her hair from chemotherapy so they should probably be a little more snug than usual. I'm a little nervous because there are "chemo cap" patterns and I'm honestly not sure what makes them different from other hat patterns. I made sure to choose the softest yarn I could find though, and I chose DK yarn so they'd be less bulky. Will they be warm enough for winter in Maine though? I hope so.

Hopefully these will both be done in the next week, and I'll post final pictures before I mail them off!

Sweater, now with 50% more misfortune

My vacation, I thought, would be the perfect time to correct the mistakes of the Sweater with Rib Pattern. So last week I prepared to measure, take notes, calculate and set my course toward a successful sweater. The first thing I did was to lay out my sweater on the dining room table to take it apart and get a good look at what needs to be done.

Right away I noticed something that had escaped my attention earlier: the front and back of the sweater aren't quite the same color.

As you can imagine, I was not happy to see this. I'm using Caron Simply Soft which is cheap, acrylic, and declares "no dye lot," which apparently doesn't mean what I thought it meant. I assumed it meant "no need for a dye lot because the materials are all fake and completely uniform." But no, it seems to mean "Hey buddy, you're on your own. Good luck with that." For some reason, this color issue is only visible under the dining room light, which is why I hadn't noticed it before. (And is inexplicable - it's a crappy old chandelier with those stupid little chandelier bulbs.) I didn't even attempt to capture the issue in a photo. The long and short of it is that if it's so apparent in one room of my house, it's sure to be apparent somewhere I will go wearing the sweater, so it must be fixed.

I assembled all the skeins of the yarn together and divided them up based on the color differences. There is enough of one shade to at least do another front (or back - they are the same). Worst-case scenario, the sleeves will end up being slightly off color. But there is no avoiding having to do another whole large piece, and this is in addition to ripping back and correcting the lace pattern.

One thing I try to do every time I have vacation in the winter is watch Pride & Prejudice, the 5-hour BBC version. While doing so I ripped back and re-knit most of one piece with the lace coming out higher up. A little too high. So I ripped back again (this is becoming a theme) and finally finished that piece. Third time's a charm, as they say.


Now I just need to make another whole piece like this. Again. Let's hope I get to wear this sweater while it's still cold enough to do so.

Hopelessness, doom, despair

I'm so sorry to have to show you this, but I seem to have created a Sweater of Misfortune.


I didn't swatch for gauge because it was given over a portion of the rib/lace pattern, and it would have to have been rather large. Instead I decided to just knit a couple of inches, hold it up to myself, and guess if it would fit. This worked well enough, but it was coming out rather fitted - which I like - and this means that there would be horizontal stretching. Horizontal stretching means vertical shrinking, so when all was said and done I ended up running out of pattern a little too early and decided to just have extra ribbing at the top. I wish I could find a good non-Ravelry link to what this sweater should look like, but for those who are Ravelry members, looky here.

For those of you who can't access the link , suffice it to say that it looks much better than my sorry excuse for a sweater. Had I swatched, perhaps I would have gone with needles a size larger and would not be in this mess. Why did I think that 8 inches of ribbing at the top would look perfectly fine? Probably because all the chocolate I have been eating has affected my brain in ways I didn't think possible.

There are a number of directions I could go at this point:
a) finish and hope it looks better when done
b) spend hours ripping back and adding extra pattern repeats until it comes out looking correct
c) stuff it in a closet and never speak of it again

Though I am leaning towards c, that would be a cop-out and a waste of perfectly good, albeit cheap acrylic, yarn. So I think I will attempt option b and hopefully end up with a sweater I would be willing to wear in front of someone other than my cat. The winter is looking bleak indeed.

An almost end and an uncertain beginning

The Doctor Who Fingerless Gloves are mostly done.


I still need to make the mitten caps, but can't start until buttons have been obtained so I know how big to make the button holes. But as you can see, the gloves have already been worn and gotten dirty which is a good sign of a well-loved gift.

In the meantime, I have started another project. In my quest to use up yarn in my stash, I chose this pattern from Rebecca magazine:


This is my first project from Rebecca, although I have enjoyed the photos of their sweaters as modeled by carefree youths holding hands and frolicking on beaches, rooftops, etc. So far, I'm finding the pattern instructions a little unclear. Also I've heard that the chart contains errors, and I'm nervous about the fact that I cannot find these errors. I'm sure they will be apparent the first time I wear the sweater.

Not a lot of progress so far:


The yarn is Caron Simply Soft, which in case you are wondering is 100% acrylic, but very soft as the name suggests. It was under $15 so if the sweater comes out terribly only my time has been wasted. Oh, did I mention I didn't swatch for this? I started to, but the chart is rather involved for a swatch, so I decided to just knit several inches and then measure gauge and hold it up to myself to see if the size looks feasible because I also wasn't sure which size to make.

Just to be clear, let's review the strikes already against this sweater:
1. Unsure of which size would be appropriate
2. Did not swatch
3. Chart may contain errors
4. Cheap acrylic yarn which cannot be blocked to hide aforementioned sins

I just want to document all of this so that when my sweater comes out fitting my cat - complete with 4 sleeves - I cannot act surprised. I'm going to go have a glass of wine now.

Progress on 4 (!) projects

Just to top off an already bad day, I came home and tried on my cardigan, which had been blocking. Lying there on the table it looks so cute, so comfy.



But guess what? It doesn't fricking fit. The armholes are too tight and then the parts just under the armholes are weirdly baggy. Why are armholes the bane of my existence? I got stitch gauge, row gauge- you name it, I got it. So why is this so wrong? Let me just say that I do love Stefanie Japel's designs, but I noticed that the schematics for this pattern don't include as many helpful measurements as it could. For example, the raglan seams: no measurements indicated. I did, of course, try the sweater on while it was in progress, but it was hard to tell anything about the sleeves as the ribbing was SO tight before I blocked it that I couldn't get it on anyhow. I don't think my shoulders are ridiculously large, but I haven't heard of other people having this problem.

So what do I do? Should I try to block it again? Do I just rip out the whole thing and start again? I wouldn't even know how to correct these mistakes though, because I'd want to knit longer before detaching the sleeves, but that would mean more increases, and I don't want more increases as the bust area is plenty big. Since the increases are decorative eyelets, wouldn't it look funny if I just left them out?

Oh also, the purple blob on the top left of that photo? It's Foliage from the new Knitty.



I knit it the other day to use up some stash yarn and it makes my head look like a grape. But don't let that deter you - I'm sure on a person with a normal-sized head it would look very cute. On those of us with child-size peaheads, not so much.

I do have some good news though. I'm making great progress on my second Baudelaire sock!



Dear, sweet sock! You will fit me perfectly, as does your sister, and will not plague me with weird problems that make me feel like my body is weird-shaped and out of proportion (when in fact it is you who are weird-shaped and out of proportion). No, you will keep my foot warm and look beautiful as a well-behaved sock should.

Last but not least, I have cast on for the Spicy Fitted V-Neck Tee. I showed you the yarn back here in June. I will be keeping a close eye on the armholes!

Oh, one more thing- if you are on Ravelry, I have finally posted most my projects there (my username is threegoodrats). If you are not on Ravelry, I have also posted these pictures on Flickr.

A Quiz

Which of the following pictures were taken inside a giant model heart, and which were taken inside the Seattle Public Library?







You had to think about it didn't you? The implications are disturbing.