Couch o’ Knitting
The couch in my Houston apartment has the advantage of rarely seeing a cat around. Since it’s also where I park my rear after work every day, it’s turned into the designated knitting location for my time down here. I can’t tell you how many movies and tv series I’ve watched while sitting there and knitting away.
Since I do most of my knitting here, most of my yarn and needles have migrated here as well. The good thing about the traveling between cities and staying in a hotel was that I focused on one project and kept it with me until it got too big to travel. Now, though … well, look at that couch! I’ve gone from a mostly-finisher to a chronic starter!
You’ve got the blue, green, and purple Therapy Clapotis at the top left; I knit that one almost every night because the pattern is such a soothing repetition. That beautiful black wrap? It’s the long-awaited Cozy, finally getting close to completion. I started on the last ball of yarn this weekend and made the decision to bring the extra-large suitcase this week so I could transport it down here. (Yes, I packed based on my knitting. Lord.)
Top right corner is Samantha, and you can see that I’ve started unraveling the neck shaping so I can rework it … and then I got scared/frustrated/etc. and left it on the back of the couch. (That’s also Clive’s spot to sleep when he’s down here, so I’m glad he’s in Dallas. I would have to actually do something with Samantha if he were here.) I’m also not excited about Samantha because Kailyn is the size of many eight month old babies and she’s only three and a half months old. She’s VERY tall. Well, she started life at almost 9.5 pounds, so what did I expect?
So then we have, on the couch seat, Phillip’s sock, a new baby sweater for yet another baby, and a pile of KnitPicks self-striping sock yarn for — you guessed it — even more baby sweaters. Oh, and some Geranium sock yarn because I love it. There’s also a Rowan magazine hiding under that pile with the pattern for Audrey. The yarn for that is slowly making its way up here, too.
I just need to focus, I know, but I keep wanting to start new and fun things. Btw, I’m still waiting for the sock love to strike. My next ones might have to have a pattern to make me care about them.
Piecing it together
I have to say — again — that I’m surprised at how quickly this actually comes together. In the last week I’ve completed the front right side, seamed the shoulders together with the three-needle bind-off, and almost have finished with the collar. There’s just one more row until I take the collar off, fold it over, and tack it down.
But. This week’s work was also challenging, particularly this weekend when I was doing the neck shaping on the front right piece. I think the instructions for the right side are actually for the left side. My copy of the pattern says to work the first nine stitches in pattern, then knit across, but the pattern is actually in the last nine stitches, not the first. That was a bit of a struggle, and I’m hoping that I’ve done it right. I know that I haven’t done it exactly right, though, because when I went to do the shoulder seaming I had mismatched stitch counts on both sides. That was quickly fixed by faking stitches, but I’m now worried about how the neck and shoulders are going to turn out. You can see in that second picture that I have some ugly gaps at the neck where the front pieces transition to the back … not sure how that will turn out.
So, on to the collar and then the sleeves. I’m thinking about just picking up the stitches on double pointed needles and then knitting the sleeves in the round, but I’m not sure. If I do that it might be better to seam the sides first, and I’m not sure I want to be a risk taker. :) Any thoughts?
halfway there!
Now that I have time to work on Samantha again (my Spring term classes are FINISHED), I’m loving how quickly it knits up. The back skirt and bodice seemed to take a long time, but this newly finished front right piece is zipping right along. I think I spent about four days of off-and-on knitting getting this one done.
I’m still a little iffy on the shaping, and I had to frog every single buttonhole row, but I still love the pattern. It’s very sweet and cute without being too cloying.
Last night I cast on and began the front left piece. Once it’s done, I just have the piecing and sleeves to do!
The “Samantha” trouble
Okay, here’s the specific instructions that I’m having trouble with. All directions (c) Kate Gilbert and all that.
Back neck shaping
Row 49: K 25, k center 19 sts onto circular needle, then using straight needle, k to end.
Turn and work 1 row even up to neckline.
Row 51: Using circular needle, sl1, k3, using straight needle, k across.
Turn and work 1 row even up to neckline.
Row 53: Using circular needle, sl1, k2, using straight needle, k across.
Row 54: (WS): Purl across.Place the rem sts on a dpn. Rejoin yarn and rep neck shaping for other side, reversing shaping. You will use the sts on the circular needle when you make the collar. You will use the sts on the dpn to BO the shoulders together. If you need the circular needle to work the neck on the fronts, transfer these sts to a holder or a piece of scrap yarn.
Any clues?
Samantha for Kailyn
It’s been forever since I was able to sit down and knit. School has been kicking my butt, and work hasn’t been much better. I finish up at the office, come home, and read all about Communication Theory or Language in Social Contexts and write essays that irritate me. Oh well … that’s what you get for not doing college the “normal” way and going back when you’re 27, I suppose!
But … next week is finals, and I’ve finished all of my major assignments. I have no classes this summer (hurray), so my knitting needles are getting a workout again! Cozy is still on the needles, partly because of the knitting moratorium and partly because I only get so far before I screw up a row. Ah well. Mom will get it at some point, most likely before next fall.
I am making progress on Samantha, though!
I took this with me on the cruise in April and was able to get more done. Dell picked it up, too, when she needed a break from her own project. :-) I love the faux smocking on the bodice, but let me tell you — all that stockinette stitch is just snoozey. It’s so pretty to watch the results form, though, so I don’t mind.
I’m kind of stuck on the back neck shaping, though. You keep the “shoulders” on straight needles (or one pair of circs, in my case) and put the neck stitches on a pair of circs (second pair for me). You get the stitches on the needles, then the instructions say to turn, knit even with neckline, and then there are instructions for the next row. I’m not sure what “knit even with neckline” means, or when I’m supposed to turn … hmmm. I should go check Kate’s website. It’s a great little sweater dress, though. I just have a feeling that Kailyn will be too big to wear it!
Speaking of Kate Gilbert, somewhere on this computer I think I have pictures of what happens when you felt a Clapotis, too, so I’ll have to share that.
ETA: Huh. Kate Gilbert’s website seems to be down. :(
Gauge hell
At some point I’m going to be upgrading this blog to WordPress 1.5, but that requires concentration and re-working of the different stylesheets so that I can get my look back on here, and I’m just not that with it right now.
So my gauge woes with “Samantha” are far from over. I started knitting with the new yarn (Endless Summer “Lara Print” in Lavender Sachet from Elann.com), and it’s a beautiful, soft, smooth yarn. But apparently I’m knitting too big for the stitch gauge, which really shocks me. So I unravelled everything and started a swatch gauge with size 3 needles instead of size 4. Closer.
I was all set to start on those five rows again when I realized that the first four rows are supposed to be on needles a size smaller than the rest of the sweater. Well, screw that. I’ve had enough of fighting with this thing, and now I’m just going to knit it. I told Dell yesterday that I’ve reached the point where I am so mad at knitting that I wonder why I ever started it.
So I’ve started it all over again! Let me tell you, I have those first five rows of the pattern memorized, I’ve started them so many times. And it’s lovely, and I’m at a straight knitting section, which is nice and mindless. No pictures, because the little girl who this is for was just born yesterday and her mummy and daddy have the camera. :-)
That’s the knitting news around here. I’m still plugging away on Cozy, I’m thinking about unraveling Phillip’s socks and starting them over, and Thomas’s sweater is on hold because, well, to be honest … I got bored. Thus the “Samantha” endeavors. I’ve got such a short attention span!
Gauge on empty.
I didn’t have enough to do with Cozy and the socks for my brother, so I decided to go ahead and start something else. I was all set to knit Samantha (see sidebar for link) and had wonderful, beautiful yarn picked out for it. I got out my bamboo size 3 needles and my bamboo size 4 needles and prepared to start.
This is when I learned the valuable lesson that English “double knit” is not the same as U.S. “double knit” weight.
I don’t generally swatch, see. I go ahead and start and do periodic checks and measure as I go. I hate swatch knitting, and you’d think that an experience like this would cure me, but probably not.
I thought, as I went along, that the casting on seemed to be awfully long for a baby sweater. (Clue 1.) I also thought that my size 3 bamboo needles seemed about to snap sometimes with pulling the yarn through. (Clue 2) I decided to continue for a few rows because I loved the yarn in question, Debblie Bliss Cotton DK. I then pulled out the tape measure, checked a 4 inch stretch, and counted the stitches in it. That count was the big, flaming neon sign indicating that everything was off.
I got online to do my research and found The Wool Shack, an online store based in Australia. I want to tell you right now how much I love this store. I love it so much that I really am tempted to pay the international shipping and buy things from them. Their site makes so much SENSE, is so handy, and is just generally helpful … other yarn store owners, please take note for when you try to build an electronic storefront.
First I went to the yarn section and decided to see what they had listed in their “yarns by weight” search options, and I could find out what the Debbie Bliss Cotton DK gauge was. Sure enough, all I had to do was pull down the drop box to see that a UK DK is a light worsted weight US yarn. It is not a sportweight yarn, which is what the pattern calls for. If I’d been more experienced (or just had a clue), I would’ve looked at the yarn in my hands and thought, “Huh. This doesn’t feel like a sportweight yarn,” and that would be that.
So I promptly ordered another yarn. (Not from Wool Shack, but I’m thinking about it.)
I left Samantha on the needles and immediately cast on a different baby sweater so I could get out my knitting frustration with something that I KNEW would work. Another friend just had a baby boy, and I’ve given blankets to his two older sisters. (This is one of them, actually … still one of my favorite patterns and end results.)
Anyway, another reason I loved Wool Shack is because I could turn my search around to find projects knit with the Debbie Bliss Cotton DK yarn. It popped up pictures of these projects, a link to buy the book, pictures of other patterns in the books, and I was able to be comforted that all would NOT be lost. Love them, love them, love them. I have no idea what they’re like to order from, but I’ve been using them more and more just to see what’s out there for a particular yarn.
So, moral of the story: have some common sense, Erin. :)
