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muse motivation April 10, 2013
Since the weather has been a bit misty and rainy the past few days, my energies have turned from the garden back to the needle, back to the cozy indoors…
Pulled along by TOP OF THE LAKE I’ve made quite a bit-O progress on my HEY GIRL cardi…
Nothing like a little suspense from down under to put the pedal to the metal – I actually think I knit faster watching thrillers! – and this one has some r.e.a.l. interesting moments (whatabboud the head tattoo? find me a picture of Jay Ryan’s bird-head and I’ll send you a free patttern)…
I fantasize now about getting a nice cozy container and parking it near the Pacific somewhere…
Starry-eyed, the knit goes on
And, but of course, this is now at the point wherein I bribe myself with some buttons.
The collection is pretty big right now, but really tips on the black and white side with a lot of brown tortoise-y colors thrown in.
This oatmeal yarn could do with one of those, but its light freshness seems to want to be matched in tone a little bit better.
I’m especially enamored of some light-slivery buttons – they are the most fashion-forward of the bunch, but maybe a bit too flashy? The light tortoise ones have the standard Mr. Rogers appeal and the monotone taupe-colored ones (with the little middle bump) seem just a tad bland.
Hmm.
Mod vs Traditional. Have to think about that.
Try On March 12, 2013
Once I got the nerve to frog a certain unlucky sample, a certain wardrobe sweater suggested itself to me.
(Now, my sample sweater wasn’t misbehaving, it just was something that was more fantasy than fiction. I ask you, would you do a 200 stitch provisional cast on?)
I had a lot of fun trying out some new short-row thingie-majiggies too but at the end of the day, the half-knit design was lounging in a box with a bunch of retired swatches, mocking me.
And it was made with yummy yarn, that was just sitting there, not earning its keep.
Now, it’s going to be one of those real-time grab’n’go goodies: nice color, comfortable size, it’s just a friendly little sweater. I really understand why those early 20th Century Suffragettes “borrowed” this from the boys.
This is my personal Hey Girl, in oatmeal color Ultra Alpaca Lite.
I’ve joined the body section and have made my first buttonhole.
See those neckline markers? They are what has made this type of top-down knitting sooo easy. I just hang one in every neckline increase (or raglan increase) and suddenly, it becomes simple to keep track of all that simultaneous shaping.
At the beginning of the yoke, I wrote in my pattern margin how many increases to make for my size and then just depended on the markers to Do Their Job. And all I had to do was count.
Learning how to “read” knitted fabric is something that definitely makes life so much easier. Every increase (or decrease) made has a definitive “look”: a little y-shaped stitch for a M1 or a slight little hump for a k2tog. Kfb has a little bar over a tiny hole. You can see it and you can feel it.
Even without markers, with a little practice, you can scope out the fabric landscape easily and just cruise along.
I’ve gotten requests from knitters who want me to check spreadsheets they’ve made to keep track of shaping – or who ask me to re-write a top-down pattern into line-by-line instructions to accomplish this. So complicated!
IMHO, this is much easier and intuitive (nudgies: try it, you might like it. :)
Now, I’m off to measure the circumference, check my row gauge (most likely to stray) and see if I need to make any adjustments to my body length.
Maybe I’ll reward myself with a Trip to the Button Box!