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February 20, 2006
Meltdown
I must have offended the knitting goddess big time because everything I touch turns to crap.
I made some very hard decisions. I decided to ditch the Ambrosia and reattempt the Olympic project using the exact same yarn the designer used - Jaeger Baby Merino 4ply. I found a British shop on the web that carried it. Unfortunately, they not only do not have the Baby Merino 4ply colors I'm after, they had to struggle to find much in the 4ply range period. So I went to The Fold and found what I hope is an acceptable substitute. I cast on, confidently changing the pattern. I decided to work the sleeves in the round and do away with the weaving of the ends. This eliminated one problem and created another. By not alternating the increases I ended up with a join that swirls up the sleeve. And it bugs me. It bugs me huge. I mean look at it. It's tacky!
So I make another decision. The baby is due in a week and a half and she needs a receiving blanket more than she needs an Olympic sweater. I work on the outer border feverishly and then I run out of yarn. The yarn I bought at the Alpaca show in Gray's Lake last year. In a little basket. Off to the side. Four skeins. Only four skeins. 1000 yards. The pattern called for 900. I'm short. At 9pm I call up the vendor. She'd like a sample so tomorrow morning I'm express mailing her a sliver. Hopefully I can get another skein and finish the outer border before the baby is born.
If it wasn't for the other thing I bought at The Fold I would be so low in the water right now.
Patterns for Fingerless Gloves and Ribbed Wrist Warmers by Kaci Kyler Hays. And yes, two skeins of Socks That Sock by Blue Moon Fiber Arts in Lagoon and Spinel. Because if I'm to recover, I need something simple and fast and for me.
Posted by Jacqueline at 06:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)February 18, 2006
Eeezzz Cold
My mom has a strong Spanish accent. So strong in fact that if she were an actress, they would say she was laying it on way too thick. My husband's knowledge of Spanish is sparse so their conversations are limited to "eeezzz HOT" (she lives in Puerto Rico), "eeezzz COLD" (we live in Illinois).
Momma eeezzz COLD! Without wind chill it's 0 degrees. With wind chill it's -20. I slept on the sofa. Jim had a fire going all night.
Guess who slept on my belly?
I'm itching to go to The Fold today. I need fiber therapy after last night's fiasco. Sound familiar?
Posted by Jacqueline at 06:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)February 17, 2006
Misgivings
The little voices were right. I did recheck the gauge on my swatch. However the gauge, or as the book refers to, the tension does not call for a stockinette swatch. It states the tensions (as in plural) for 1) the Yoke and sleeve pattern and 2) the Main pattern. Which means that the voices were right - the baby sweater is behemoth and probably all out of proportion and I don’t have enough yarn and I should’ve done two patterned gauge swatches instead of one stockinette swatch and I have only eight days to finish and the baby could arrive any day now.
I cannot take all the blame. I found two errors in the pattern regarding sizing and yarn requirements which I emailed the publisher. I also have heaps of questions.
Measuring
How do you measure welting? It’s so stretchy. Depending on how you lay it out (and I laid it out over and over again) it can be 44 cm or 39 cm or 47 cm. I tried counting the welts in the photo but it didn’t match. Although the photo could be the smaller size and I’m making the larger size. The other thing is that welting, as does garter, flares at the top and bottom of the fabric. While I did what I thought was the most reasonable thing - measure midway – I’m concerned about the implications for the neckline and the body. Both require picking up stitches. Won’t this cause a distortion? The designer stated that the jacket is designed for growth but can you achieve that with super stretchy welting on top and unavoidably firm color work below? I don’t know. Sounds like a fight to me.
Finishing
I added an extra stitch at the beginning and at the end of each row because I wasn’t sure how neat and smooth I could join the sides together. I thought that sewing multi color welting was going to be ornery enough as it is. Also, I floated the alternating blues but the secondary colors were too far apart to carry so I’ve also been weaving in the ends I go. With this many colors I’m concerned about bulk. I wish the designer provided some instruction/guidance as to what to do. Not to mention what kind of increases and decreases to use.
In that this is the second project to have bombed gauge wise, I think it is okay to say that Ambrosia is not the greatest substitute yarn. At least not for the yarns I typically use. For one, it doesn’t bloom. It’s not springy. While the color is vibrant somehow the texture in the swatch, the faulty swatch, is not.
This does not take away from the fact that I still don’t GAUGE properly. Will you look at the progress I made so far?
I would’ve finished the yoke by the weekend. How sucky! Can I equate this with a groin injury and bow out?
Perhaps this is a good time to focus my attention on my first commission of the year. Eight hats by March 9th. Did I forget to mention that?
Posted by Jacqueline at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)February 13, 2006
Olympic Progress
What is it about an urgent deadline (receiving blanket) that compells me to drop it and go full speed ahead on another not so urgent deadline (Olympic Challenge)? I do this all the time. In every area of my life. Which is why I always have several projects going on at once AND why I get so much done. It's true. I get so much more done doing this little Jacquie dance than if I force myself to start and finish one thing straight through. Granted, it makes for a lot of clutter in my head (and as my beautiful Jim will tell you in my physical space as well) but something about this dance works. At least in my creative world, which I've been hell bent on nurturing since I stopped working. In the world of bills and HGTV it doesn't work so well.
So the blanket is resting again. It's good for projects to rest, especially difficult ones. I started on the Olympic Project. See!
Normally I hate garter but Alison Ellen calls this welting. Despite the fact that progress is agonizingly slow, I love the way the secondary colors peak in between the alternating blues. I like to think that my niece will play peek a boo with her sleeves. That the vibrant colors will be a quiet secret between me and her. Instead of silver hearts, I'm going to use some of those beautiful fired buttons in cranberry reds instead. To give her something to peer into, to wonder, to dream. After all, why can't a child's garment be magical?
I should mention that although I did do a gauge swatch, I'm hearing voices. You know the kind. "The sleeves look awfully wide, are you sure you measured correctly?" "There's no way you have enough yarn, you better go back to The Fold before it disappears." "What is it about garter, um welting, that sucks up yarn and produces so little length?" "Are you sure you're measuring centimeters not inches?"
Other than rechecking the gauge swatch I'm ignoring all voices and focusing on my progress instead. Today is Day Four of the Knitting Olympics and the edge of sleeve to neckline is 30% done!
February 12, 2006
Inner Border Done
Finally the inner border is done. I had my doubts. I was almost finished a couple of days ago when I noticed the corner lace patterns were off by two stitches in the last four rows. It was so obviously WRONG I couldn’t even remotely consider the possibility of ignoring those itty bits. So I frogged unhappily.
Frogging lace is horrid. Frogging lace with fingering weight Suri is wretched. Frogging lace to save four imperfect sections out of 32 is wearing. But picking up those thousand stitch rows, those tiny hairy wayward stitches, that my dear knitters, will test your character. Two days, lots of naps and the big guns: a magnifying lamp and a crochet hook.
Things I did right
I enlarged the pattern including legend. I attached the make 1 right and make 1 left instructions to each side of the pattern so I didn’t forget which one to use. I used markers at each pattern repeat. I used as many as necessary, alternating colors and sizes to mark the sides and corners with a special bead one to mark the end of a row. This worked really well.
Things I should’ve done
Look at your knitting! Who said that? Zimmerman? Joyce? By focusing solely on the pattern I didn’t pay attention to what was right in front of me. This is where you really learn to knit lace. Lace does have a logic but you need to pay attention to the stitches as they form. This way you can catch mistakes as you go, not when you’re done and you stretch the pre blocked fabric to see how the pattern is forming.
Things I learned
When doing lace borders with different corner patterns, copy the corners separately and join them so you don’t get confused at the end of the last row and the beginning of the first row. I made a mistake there too but I'm letting it go. That reference would’ve helped me see the corner unit as a whole, not disconnected halves.
The Knitting Olympics has already started but I have to finish my niece's receiving blanket before the Guild's Show & Tell on Tuesday. I know how that sounds but my niece will arrive before the Guild's next Show & Tell and, well, it's my favorite part of guild. I love seeing what everyone is up to and, yes, I love showing and telling. I DO!
Besides pressure is good. And the outer border is a 16 row repeat with an undulating pattern ranging from 11 - 14 stitches. I only have to do it 64 times. By Tuesday evening. Then I can start on my Olympian challenge and my first commission of the year.
For those of you that are interested I am looking vigorously for a new job but, and I'm just saying, this not working thing really adds time to the day.
Posted by Jacqueline at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (605)February 05, 2006
First Sleepover of the Year
Rachel stayed over last night. We did a ton! We watched The Corpse Bride. We made a dress for her Knitted Babe. We watched Prisoner of Azkaban. We toyed with a Knitting Machine (unsuccessfully I might add). We saw the last of Annie. We started a scarf - Belleza Collection Dolcetto. Finally we settled in and watched Lord of the Rings - minus the Gollum snippets. He's too scary to watch with the lights turned off. This morning we settled in for a knitting lesson.
And folks it's official! Rachel is a knitter.
P.S. That's Claire napping.
Posted by Jacqueline at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)Hat for Rachel
First gift of the year! This is Rachel. As per her request - "there's a hole on the top of my hat" - I added a pom pom. She says it fits beautifully and that she can wear it everywhere, but will not get it dirty like some of the hats that she sometimes leaves outdoors.
Posted by Jacqueline at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)