Seventeen
I sure hope nobody was waiting with bated breath last night for Blankie Friday to happen, and if so I apologize for making you wait. I was too tired, too busy watching a movie with my husband (A Scanner Darkly - good movie, but it had a complicated plot and required my full attention to follow it); and too busy trying to knit up a few more squares to attribute to this week. Unfortunately, I only made it to 17 this week, which means I'm four squares short. I can live with that since I was more than that ahead last week. Still, must get back on track.
The other thing I was doing instead of blogging last night was blocking the sweater back. I am so glad I decided to do this before moving forward on the knitting. Here it is all pinned out nicely on my blocking surface - the guest bedroom bed covered in a vinyl tablecloth. I soaked it in lukewarm water and rolled it in a towel first. The brown yarn you see at the top is waste yarn holding live stitches for dealing with during finishing.
It looks innocent enough in this picture. Except maybe for that one very-thin blue stripe right in the middle of the thing. Normally, I like to match up the stripes when I'm doing self-striping anything, but as far as I can tell, the color repeat is much longer than a single ball of the yarn, and it would be too difficult to get them to match properly - still, that single-row line of blue is bothersome.
Here we have a closeup of the stitches - mostly because I want you to see that ribbing that I worked so hard to make while hunched over the damned machine. It is nice ribbing.
And this picture demonstrates the very big problem here. I have laid a sweater that fits me well on top of the new back. This is the sweater from which I took measurements in order to get a new sweater that fits me well. Despite all my giant swatching (I used an entire ball of yarn for the original swatch) and careful blocking and measuring and re-measuring of that swatch, my gauge was off enough to give me an extra two or so inches. Maybe I could live with this if I weren't planning on losing some more weight this summer - it has GOT to happen! But that is not the only problem. The length from the bottom to the underarms is good, but from the underarm to the shoulders, in case you hadn't noticed, is ridiculously long.
Now, I have already put away the knitting machine. My brother in law is coming to town in a couple of days, and there is a good chance that we will be using the guest bedroom as an actual guest bedroom rather than my personal office and depot of junk. I have at least a week to think about how I want to handle this.
Joe saw it last night and asked "Were you planning to do that cutting thing with this?" I hadn't thought of that before he asked, but it may be an option - I am planning to knit the front all in one piece and steek it down the middle for a cardigan - why not just lop a little off the sides of the back while I'm at it? This yarn is lovely and soft and nice to work with, but it is very lightly spun - barely more than roving in some places - and I'm worried about what pulling it all apart and re-knitting it through the machine will do to the fiber. I also need to just plain wait and see what happens to the size and shape after the stitches have had more chance to relax on their own - my experience with the swatch tells me that they are likely to settle out even after blocking.
I have a feeling the solution may involve ripping back to the underarms, narrowing the knitting from there up, and steeking below. But if I do that, I may as well rip back to that offensive blue stripe and correct that problem as well. And this is how I've been wasting the time I should have been spending on the blankie. Oy.
Here's some kitty cuteness for you. Harry cat is not the sharpest crayon in the box. He's laying on a wet sweater here, and I had to physically pick him up and carry him out of the room to get him off it.
Oh, and did you notice that bit of red lace in the corner? That's the scarf I was talking about last week. I finally got the bottom edging done and picked up stitches for the body. I am forcing myself to keep this project in the car and knit on it only when the girls fall asleep and I don't want to wake them up. If it were in the house all the time, I would never knit any blankie squares, I'm afraid. Here's a closeup of what I have so far. It's going to take a long time at this pace, but that's okay.
Time to go knit some squares!
The other thing I was doing instead of blogging last night was blocking the sweater back. I am so glad I decided to do this before moving forward on the knitting. Here it is all pinned out nicely on my blocking surface - the guest bedroom bed covered in a vinyl tablecloth. I soaked it in lukewarm water and rolled it in a towel first. The brown yarn you see at the top is waste yarn holding live stitches for dealing with during finishing.
It looks innocent enough in this picture. Except maybe for that one very-thin blue stripe right in the middle of the thing. Normally, I like to match up the stripes when I'm doing self-striping anything, but as far as I can tell, the color repeat is much longer than a single ball of the yarn, and it would be too difficult to get them to match properly - still, that single-row line of blue is bothersome.
Here we have a closeup of the stitches - mostly because I want you to see that ribbing that I worked so hard to make while hunched over the damned machine. It is nice ribbing.
And this picture demonstrates the very big problem here. I have laid a sweater that fits me well on top of the new back. This is the sweater from which I took measurements in order to get a new sweater that fits me well. Despite all my giant swatching (I used an entire ball of yarn for the original swatch) and careful blocking and measuring and re-measuring of that swatch, my gauge was off enough to give me an extra two or so inches. Maybe I could live with this if I weren't planning on losing some more weight this summer - it has GOT to happen! But that is not the only problem. The length from the bottom to the underarms is good, but from the underarm to the shoulders, in case you hadn't noticed, is ridiculously long.
Now, I have already put away the knitting machine. My brother in law is coming to town in a couple of days, and there is a good chance that we will be using the guest bedroom as an actual guest bedroom rather than my personal office and depot of junk. I have at least a week to think about how I want to handle this.
Joe saw it last night and asked "Were you planning to do that cutting thing with this?" I hadn't thought of that before he asked, but it may be an option - I am planning to knit the front all in one piece and steek it down the middle for a cardigan - why not just lop a little off the sides of the back while I'm at it? This yarn is lovely and soft and nice to work with, but it is very lightly spun - barely more than roving in some places - and I'm worried about what pulling it all apart and re-knitting it through the machine will do to the fiber. I also need to just plain wait and see what happens to the size and shape after the stitches have had more chance to relax on their own - my experience with the swatch tells me that they are likely to settle out even after blocking.
I have a feeling the solution may involve ripping back to the underarms, narrowing the knitting from there up, and steeking below. But if I do that, I may as well rip back to that offensive blue stripe and correct that problem as well. And this is how I've been wasting the time I should have been spending on the blankie. Oy.
Here's some kitty cuteness for you. Harry cat is not the sharpest crayon in the box. He's laying on a wet sweater here, and I had to physically pick him up and carry him out of the room to get him off it.
Oh, and did you notice that bit of red lace in the corner? That's the scarf I was talking about last week. I finally got the bottom edging done and picked up stitches for the body. I am forcing myself to keep this project in the car and knit on it only when the girls fall asleep and I don't want to wake them up. If it were in the house all the time, I would never knit any blankie squares, I'm afraid. Here's a closeup of what I have so far. It's going to take a long time at this pace, but that's okay.
Time to go knit some squares!
posted by Shelly Kang at 9:28 PM
5 Comments:
Your blankie is looking awesome! I've made more progress on mine too. I was thinking of doing Friday updates as well, but didn't get to it this Friday. I have posted about it several times so far this month, though.
Your blankie is fabulous! And the sweater and the lace, with two little girls...where do you find the time? You're my knitting hero. Don't worry about the thin blue line in the sweater - just think of it as a design element. I'm anxious to see the finished sweater. I've never attempted something so complicated. And steeks - [shrieks]!
You are waaaaay more patient with your knitting than I am! I would be running around, tearing my hair out shrieking "It's not gonna fit! It's not gonna fit!" and dissolving into a pile of wet blubberiness on the floor. I applaud you.
Your blankie is coming along. I am currently working on collecting supplies to start my very own blankie. Any idea on how to get sock yarn as you have?
ooh..so glad i stumbled on your blog! There's not so many of us machine knitters out there any more although i think it is becoming more fashionable again! I love your blankie, it is going to be so beautiful...how do I go about joining in with this group or whatever it is called? I'm going to bookmark your blog so i cankeep coming back to it. So many words to read. I think that crafty people get loads more done than non crafty people, even with a family to care for the need to create something is just so important to us! Marianne in the UK!
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