I’m Changing My Mind (‘cos that’s what I do)

I’m a bit silly. I got me a pile of Garnstudio Alpaca with my Christmas gift card to my favorite LYS, having already decided I wanted to knit Zora. It’s a cardigan with a subtle lace pattern and some rib at the waist. With its generous positive ease, it looks quite comfy.

Here are the reasons why I’m changing my mind about knitting it (damnit):

It’s not necessarily the first thing I would go for because it doesn’t come with buttons, and I like to be able to button up my cardigan if I feel like it. I once had a cardigan with only a belt for closure, and frankly it stressed me right out. Considering that, it’s odd that I was so adamant that that’s the cardigan I want – nay, need. Until now.

I started looking around Ravelry, and found another, much more intriguing option. It’s the Paulie cardigan.

It’s knitted top down and seamlessly with raglan sleeves, all features I’ve realized I love. It’s also been designed for alpaca yarn and it’s always a good idea to stay with the same fiber when changing the yarn for a pattern. It’s stockinette stitch which is good. I have learned the hard way (hello 180 cm x 100 cm alpaca lace shawl) that alpaca has zero stitch definition – not a problem with stockinette. It’s pretty fitted, and it is known that I really just don’t like baggy clothes.

The Paulie cardigan also reminds me strongly of another stripy cardigan (Freya, Ravelry link) I’ve been dreaming about all week long. This one has seriously captured my heart, probably because I can’t knit it! It’s being test knit but I don’t have time to do that, and when it’s published, I won’t want to buy it because that way madness lies.

I thought the stripes would be a problem, but then Ravelry very helpfully reminded me that I have those three balls of the same yarn in another colorway that I just can’t make work as anything. They’ve been a beginning of a shawl and another shawl and a hat and now have been at the bottom of my WIP bin for six months as an unappetizing cowl. But they could work with the green.

And yet… I can’t quite shake the feeling that I should knit the Zora because that’s what I had in mind first… baroo?

Silly brain. It’s like it got stuck on the Zora idea, got comfy in its groove, and is now hanging on out of sheer bloody-minded stubbornnes. Now, if there’s a problem with the Paulie, my brain’s going to be all “Told you so…”, I just know it.

Thermal Sweater

Churning out the last few inches of the second sleeve on my Thermal sweater (published in the winter 2006 issue of Knitty), it never occurred to me there’s even a possibility that once it’s finished… I wouldn’t like it. But there you have it.

It’s the shoulders. The last decreases at the shoulder are squarish, and those create square baggy things both in the front and back on the shoulders when I wear the sweater. They go away if I pull at the sleeves and the hem, but come back the instant I move.

I ripped back the shoulder seams several times but no matter what technique I use to sew them, it’s a no go. I even entertained the thought of taking scissors to the square bits, but I can see that idea leading to tears.

I complained about this to my mom, and she suggested I rip back and do the decreases again and make them more rounded. See, that is the perfect fix for the problem. Or it would’ve been, had I thought of it before I said let it be, sewed on the sleeves for once and for all, and weaved in all the ends.

It’s even worse in the back. And also the shoulders are noticeably different from each other. Wah.

All the little problems I have with it are just small enough that I don’t want to go to the trouble of fixing them, but they still bug me.

A bad, bad project deserves bad, bad photos, so here you go:

See? You probably don’t, but it’s a great fit, and the sleeves are nice and long, and I really like the shape of the neckline, and the buttons are cute. I even like the yarn I used, and if you’re a yarn snob you might want to avert your eyes: I used Denver (100 % acrylic) from Red Heart. It was pleasurable to work with and the resulting fabric is soft and has nice drape. It’s just the shoulders, grrr.

I suppose I’ll either get used to it or fix it at some point. Whichever, I feel thoroughly meh about this one.

 

 

Progress with Thermal Sweater

Hey look, I finished a sleeve for the Thermal sweater (from the Winter 2006 Knitty) I began knitting last February!

Only one more sleeve to go, and I cast on for it straight away. Go me.

I have been thoroughly enjoying finishing these WIPs. I can feel this restlessness draining away from me as I wrap up projects that have been out of my eyes but not out of my mind. I guess it says something about my general attitude towards finishing things that I’ve begun – one way or the other. Knitting is a voluntary hobby but it still bothers me so much to know there are loose ends  (see what I did there?) in an area of my life.

Also, soon I will have a new sweater. Yay!

Clessidra

I finished one of those works in progress I lamented earlier. I hadn’t realized this, but I began knitting these socks last March, soooo it only took me a neat 9  months to finish. If I recall correctly, I first took a break from these because they’re a bit on the complex side, and not what you’d call relaxing tv knitting… and then the break stretched on a bit.

Mostly, it says something nice about the pattern and this yarn that I eventually just took the time to knit the other sock as well.

The pattern is Clessidra from the 2007 spring issue of Knitty and I used almost 200 g of Sockenwolle (fingering weight, 100 g = 300 m) from Seehawer & Siebert. I didn’t feel like messing around with stitch numbers to make these bigger, so I used a bigger needle size than the pattern suggests. In the end, this of course forced me to knit fewer rows between calf shaping rows, and fewer rows in the heel flap… thereby completely defeating the whole point of changing the needle size in the first place. Hah!

Mm this color is delicious. I have absolutely no clothes that go together with it and I don’t even care. The yarn is lovely – gives nice stitch definition and is still soft. Instead of the usual acrylic to strengthen the wool, this yarn has some ramie in it. Ramie is, apparently, a plant. Weird! It’ll be interesting to see how well these hold up in use.

39 cm x 198 cm

That’s how big my finished Clapotis turned out to be after I blocked it – even though I blocked it for width rather than length. It’s also the answer to the question of why it took me nearly three months to complete this thing.

Pattern: Clapotis

Yarn: Araucania Ranco Multy (100 g = 344 m), 2 skeins

Colorway: 335

Needles: 3,5 mm

*****

See how it stretches out to infinity. That’s 33 repeats of the straight rows before beginning the decrease rows.

And the funny thing? I was *this* close to finishing it, when I completely and utterly ran out of yarn.

At that point I just thought to myself – you know what, I don’t think I mind… at least, not enough to rip back.

Just let it be.

The yarn was a delight to work with, but I could’ve done without the bright turquoise bits. For some reason I didn’t realize there was any turquoise in the yarn when I saw it as a skein. That’s variegated yarns for you, always full of surprises.

All’s Well That Ends Well

My birthday present for mom this year provided me with an ample measure of excitement.

I’ve wanted to knit Q for a while. It’s a stranded color-work sock pattern that to me is nicely modern and kind of different. I even bought yarn for it last winter (two balls Sisu from Sandnes Garn. It’s a fingering weight wool and nylon blend). It was an impulse purchase, and it wasn’t until a lot later that I started wondering if I had enough yarn…

I don’t often buy yarn without having a specific project in mind for it, but that doesn’t mean my stash isn’t full of yarn without a purpose in its life.

This happened to the Sisu as well, as I forgot about the Q socks for a long while. This was a blessing in disguise, because months later I happened to buy another ball of the exact same colour as the main colour I had originally chosen for the socks.

When the time came to knit mom something for her birthday, I went through my stash, and remembered this pattern when I saw the Sisu I had bought. Then I looked up the actual pattern, and realized I really didn’t have enough. Fine, I thought. I’ll find another, similar yarn in my stash, and make tri-color Q socks, somehow. Imagine my surprise and happiness when I stumbled upon the third ball of Sisu 🙂

Socks!

Socks Socks!

Pattern: Q by Aija Goto

Published in Knitty

Yarn: Sisu from Sandnes Garn (50 g = 160 m), 3 balls

Needles: 2,5 mm

3 balls wouldn’t have been enough, but luckily I was paranoid enough about running out of yarn that I knitted less of the leg chart repeats than the pattern instructed (2 repeats before the decrease chart, 1 repeat after it).

And then I was worried I wasn’t knitting knee highs, since, you know, I wasn’t doing all the repeats. But luckily, my mom seems to like the length just fine.

I just love how my memory of a gold-fish saved this project. I can see myself even now, going in that yarn shop twice, seeing that yarn and wanting it, twice, trying to choose what colors I’d like to buy, and buying the same exact color – twice. Haha. I crack myself up.