Thursday, April 27, 2006

WEBS anyone?

I have lots of projects going. And I have lots more yarn in my stash. So really, I shouldn't be buying yarn. However, I'm planning a trip to visit the biggest, and best yarn store in MA this weekend. There's still room left in my car if any of you Boston-area knitters want to join me in buying massive quantities of yarn (or at least being tempted to buy). The plan is to leave mid-morning on Saturday.

I promise to post progress pictures soon. I have been knitting a litte bit. And I'll have to knit a lot more in the next couple of days in order to make room for some new purchases.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Just a Dishcloth

The two sweaters i've been working on lately (Komi and the wheat ear rib sweater) aren't going well. I realized that I had been in denial about the size of Komi, so I need to rip. I don't really feel like untangling the mess that shetland jumperweight yarn is going to become when I have 5 different colors in one big heap on the floor.

I thought the wheat ear rib sweater was going really well. I decided that it was going to be a raglan, and I knew how many stitches I had for the back. I decided how big I wanted the neck to be. I then consulted many published raglan sweater patterns, including Ann Budd's book of sweater patterns to determine at what rate I should decrease. Those patterns all suggested decrease rates that were similar to what I had calculated. I thought I was all set. It turns out that I made two mistakes:

1. I forgot that when you knit a raglan, the back decreases don't go all the way up to the shoulder.

2. The wheat ear rib pattern is a ribbing. It also has twisted stitches. These two facts mean that it pulls in A LOT. While the row gauge is similar to stockinette, the stitch gauge is not. There are more stitches per inch than in stockinette. This means that Ann Budd's decrease rate isn't going to work.

Here is what I have:



I have about one more inch of knitting before I need to have all the stitches outside the orange markers disappear. Perhaps this sweater will have a wider neck than I had planned. Or perhaps I will rip. We'll see. For now I'm going to knit that last inch and then move on to another piece. If there is ripping, it will be at the end.

To distract me from the sweater mess, I knit a dishcloth. I have never knit a dishcloth before, and I have never before had any interest in knitting one. Then I read the new Mason-Dixon knitting book, and suddenly had the urge to knit a dishcloth. I decided that it might be fun to have a colorful assortment of dishcloths to brighten up the chore of dishes. Here's the first one. I started knitting it on the subway, so I used the first stitch pattern that came into my head. In the future I'll probably consult a stitch dictionary, or at least think about it for more than 3 seconds before I start.



As soon as I finished, I wove in the ends and immediately tried it out. It doesn't work badly. It is possible that it requires the use of a bit more soap than a standard sponge, but it is cheerful. In my typical style, I did not just buy one ball of yarn to make dishcloths with to see how I liked them. Instead I bought 5 balls in different bright colors. You'll just have to wait until I knit them up to see what the colors are.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Finished Faroese

I finally finished the double knit Faroese hat. I love it! Double knitting (at least in my hands) isn't as even as regular stockinette, but I think it has more character. And this hat is WARM!

One fun aspect of double knitting is that it produces a reversible fabric. This hat is grey on one side and red on the other.




I took advantage of it being reversible to make a fold-up contrasting brim:



I think I'm going to have to wait until next winter to wear this outside. Four layers of wool over my ears is a bit much for April.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Coasters

Last night my husband used our ball of string to tie up our cardboard boxes for recycling. When he was done, he left it sitting near my knitting spot. As I was looking at it, it occurred to me that it might make interesting crocheted coasters. So, I gave it a try. This is what I came up with:



I used string from the hardware store and a size J crochet hook. It is just single crochet, and I did a 12 stitch by 12 row square. I like them!