Further Musing

Must...Do...Homework...

And yet, the Sleeve, she grows.

I'm liking the dpns now that the sleeve has some length to it. And look! I can try it on!

Though it does look somewhat like a cast with my other sleeve pushed up:

It's sort of big, but I only have two more increase repeats to go, so I'm sure it will be perfect. I made a mistake in one of my yarn overs, but since I could even figure out what or how I'd messed up, I decided not to go back and redo it. It won't be visible in the finished product. Which will be finished very soon, at this rate!

And yes, I do have a 10-page paper due on March 7th. I haven't forgotten about it.

Ten Points

If this were a math quiz, or an ice dance or something, I'd be happy. But it's not.

It's knitting, baby.

Ten points is about six too many. I was standing in the fabric store that's on the way home from work and just happens to carry clover bamboo needles, the very brand I was using for the body of ZigZag, which yield a different enough gauge than my addi turbos of the same size that the two-circular method is out, and in one hand I had a 16" circular, priced $7.75, in the other a set of dpns, priced $8.25.

WHY DID I BUY THE DPNS? They had a whole fifty cents against them!

But I did, so I have to live with doing the sleeves on them, and that's that. I made my doubly-pointed bed. I'd never so much as held a set of dpns, let alone cast on and knit with them, but my intuition did tell me that at least these were bamboo, and I know that bamboo + merino style = no slipping, so they wouldn't be all fallin' out of my stitches or anything. My first cast-on went smoothly, except that I joined the ends with the yarn coming up through the middle of the sleeve hole, easily fixed after a few rounds. It's been good so far, and somewhat addicting. I will of course have to do a second sleeve though, at some point or another, so we'll see how fun that is.

um, 13 inches of chart A to go.

Color Musings

(oh yeah and)

We Got Shoulders

I had to spend a few hours out today doing nothing because there wasn't really time to go home between on-campus obligations, so I finished the front and back of ZigZag. I like it, but I'm not looking forward to picking up stitches on the neck. I think I saw some handy tutorial for that online, though. Somewhere.

But. Do you see the mistake? I didn't see it until I was taking the photos, and now it's too damn late, I'm not ripping out those shoulders. Not that they were hard, I'm just too annoyed with this pattern to do it the honor of fixing my mistake for real.

GASP!

I'm just going to sew it closed when I weave in the ends. And believe me, there are ends to be woven, about a million of them. I don't know why. Luckily I like weaving them in much better now that I've read this handy tutorial (thank god for the tutes).

PS Aha! I found it, picking up stitches along a curve.

ZigZag Tips

I hope these don't do more harm than good:

• I used a cable cast-on, and found that after my 6 garter-st rows I was on what I wanted to be the RS of my work. The pattern calls for a "Setup row [WS]: K2, p2, [k6, p4] to last 10 sts, end k6, p2, k2." This is apparently analogous to row 1 of Chart A anyway, so my "setup row" was [RS]: [k4, p6] to last 4 sts, k4. The 4 knitted sts at the beginning and end consist of the 2 garter sts and the single cables. I then started Chart A at row 1, a WS row.
• When working the back, the pattern says: "Work 1 WS (odd-numbered) row. BO 0[0, 2, 2, 4, 4] st at beg of next 2 rows. 80[88, 96, 104, 112, 120]sts rem. Work 1 WS row." If you knit a WS row, then 2 rows, your next row is an RS row. It's just the laws of knitting. Since my size called for 0 BOs anyway, I just cut these two rows down to one [RS] row, then went ahead with the last WS row. If you were doing a size that called for binding off, i'd do the second set of BOs on the last WS row, or something.
• The blobby 3st decreases in Chart B were, for me, on a WS row. I'd be interested to know if others landed on an RS row for the Chart B yos and decs, and how they did it (unless they wisely added a row in somewhere). Maybe I misinterpreted something. So, to minimize blob, my decs were:


sl1p, slip 2nd st on left-hand needle over 1st st,
p that 1st st, pass the original slipped stitch over it
• UPDATE: Lordy, whatever you do, don't end up with your RS/WS rows switched. I don't know how I did it, but I maintained it to the neck and shoulder shaping, and I'm just glad I didn't make it one of my knitting & beer nights.

I will update this list if I find any other weirdnesses in the pattern.

ZigZag

Oh right, this is a knitting blog. Ahem:

My current main work in progress is the ZigZag pullover from knitty. I printed the pattern back in September and only now got started on it. The whole Elann/Top Ramen thing didn't work out so well for my first ZigZag yarn purchase (though I did knit my first sweater ever out of that stuff, to be explored later). Then I did some math, swatched with some KnitPicks Merino Style left over from a poncho I made last summer, and ordered 8 balls of it in Vanilla. I think I probably cast on in late January, and it's going quickly:




It's really a beautiful sweater, but the pattern has given me some trouble. There seem to be some RS/WS typos, and I don't like the 3st decreases for the bottom half of chart B. You can see them in the close-up, the big ugly bumps at the tops of the Vs. That's the back, so I have about two days to come up with something better for the front. The yos and decs are worked on the WS if you do exactly what (I believe) the pattern asks, yet the legend calls the decs "k2togs." Bleh. There are some fixes here and here, but I didn't get to their sage advice in time, and I didn't want to tinker with the row count past the divide because I don't know set-in sleeves too well and I don't want to mess them up.

"You are my everest!"
- Joey to turkey, Friends

My latest project: Hush-Hush. And I'm not afraid to show some skin here at Hot Coals Only! Even if it is ghostly pale! Berkeley winters will do that. I used the recommended yarn, and can't speak highly enough of the people over at Halcyon Yarn. They are so nice, quick to answer your e-mails, and mail you a gorgeous catalog after you buy something from them. Hush-Hush was a 7-month affair, but worth it. It's so shiny! I decreased quite a bit extra and added a row of eyelets for ribbon at the top, but decided that to put ribbon at both ends would be too much. Ta-da!



Here it is blocking. I show you this not because blocking is at all exciting, but because this is my first actual knitting post and by way of introduction I want you to see:

My green carpet: a green not found in Nature, nor in any man-made item ever found in public (seriously, I've tried to find another occurence of this hue: nada). My blocking board: a torn up cardboard box my roommate got something sent to her in, salvaged from the recycling pile and promptly returned. My messy floor: silly me, I took this at a funny angle so I could not crop out the purse, school papers, and other live projects that live in the corner of my room. Like I said: college.

First Post Eva

I'm Al, I'm a junior in college, I forsake fancy yarn for good food. Elann is my Top Ramen.

Hi.

Pattern Central!

The following are my original patterns:

Lock & Key
knit dreadlock hat
free pattern!

added 7.9.2006