Woe is me. May 31, 2008

So I thought I’d talk a bit about my WIP sweater before anything else today, since it seems to be a bit of a dire situation.

The last time I blogged about it I was talking about how worried I was that it was going to end up being too small for me. Now I wish that were my problem. I’ve done a couple of stupid things so far and I need to admit to/complain about them:

• I didn’t see in the pattern that the designed suggested rounding down sizes when you make it to ensure that it would be fitted and look best. So I cast on for the 34″ pattern (I measure 33″ around) but apparently I should’ve cast on for the 32″.
• I thought that I was getting nothing done in the middle of the body, so I never bothered measuring the progress to see when I would need to start in with the shaping. So I ended up knitting an extra 2ish inches in the middle of the body! Which normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but I didn’t order enough yarn to have room for error. And I didn’t really want to try unraveling those extra inches because it would be such a pain to make sure that all of my stitches stayed on the needle. So instead I left it how it was.
• SO IN SUMMATION…. I am totally paranoid that I’m going to run out of yarn halfway through the second sleeve. And then I’ll try it on to see how it looks and I’ll realize that it looks like I’m wearing a big baggy potato sack. Depressing.

So now I’m really hesitant to knit with much enthusiasm because I don’t think it’s gonna turn out looking right and I hate wasting time on a project that I’m going to hate. Gosh! I just don’t know what I’m gonna do!!! My friend Cyrstal was kind enough to say that if it didn’t fit me I could give it to her. Haha. But there’s no way I could give away a Thermal sweater!!! SO MUCH time and yarn money has gone into this project!! She could never love it as much as I could!!! I honestly think if worse comes to worst, I’ll just unravel the dumb thing and then leave the giant yarn ball in a closet for a few months until the sight of it doesn’t make me sick. And then I guess I could start the sweater over in a smaller pattern.

Anyway, here are some pictures. I just set aside the stitches for the armholes and have worked a few inches in the upper back.

Anyway, in less depressing news I bought a laptop!! It just got here the other day, which is perfect because I didn’t think I was gonna get it until mid-June, and the wait was killing me!!! Yeah, it’s not very cute, but it works beautifully. Haha I’m just jealous because my cousin got a cute green one and my boss got a white one with this cute blue flower print. And mine is just plain black and not as compact. But oh well. I need to be cool about this before the poor computer gets a complex. That’s possible, right?

And also my friends and I filmed a very strange and brief adaptation of Taming of the Shrew today. My friend needs it for extra credit in her English class and I LOVE editing videos so we spent the day being absolutely ridiculous and filming it and I think it’s gonna turn out HILARIOUS!!! Haha, we did a comical version of Hamlet a few months ago, but I think this one is gonna be SO MUCH BETTER!!! Editing should be insanely rushing, though, as it’s due Tuesday, I work ALL Monday and can’t edit then: leaving us only parts of Sunday to edit this thing between jobs. Crazy! But at least there aren’t as many thingies I have to do to get it edited. When we did Hamlet we only had 4 actresses for all of the parts (so we had to double up on characters and then splice scenes together so those characters could still talk to each other). But this time we had 6 (which doesn’t sound like much more) so only a couple people had to double up on characters and those doesn’t even have scenes together so that’s perfect for me.

So, yeah, I know that the last paragraph was just kind of a pointless spiel on my part, but I’m excited about how this is gonna turn out so I couldn’t stop writing about it, and typing on this new laptop is just too much fun!!! Oh, and by the way, I updated the “About Me” section a little bit and will add to it in the future. But you should check it out and “add friend” me where there are sites you can do that on! There are links on that page to my profiles.

But I think I’ll call this a blog post and finish up. It’s already a quarter after midnight and I have to get up in the morning, so I need to bed!!

Happy knitting, one and all. I hope your projects are all going better than mine seem to be :S

SO close to finishing, but in the meantime… May 12, 2008

So I finally finished all the knitting for the mead scarf. The only thing I have left to do is weave in the ends and block it, but I’ve been putting it off since I don’t have anything set up to do the blocking on.

Anyway, I thought I’d share an almost finished picture of my scarf, so here it is.

I absolutely love this color! I definitely would’ve had enough to have made the Thermal sweater out of this blue yarn (I still have 22 unopened skeins left over!). But oh well.

And as this was my first lace project, it did not go perfectly. Haha, there were some interesting eyelet formations and some accidental ribbed knitting in the parts that should’ve been seed stitch.

But, I think once it’s all blocked and finished, all my little mishaps will be camouflaged by the pattern. So yay. Hopefully I’ll have that done within the next week or so. I haven’t been in a terrible rush to finish it since we’ve had 100 degree weather already, leaving me without a need for a wool scarf.

And, in the meantime, I started in on the Thermal sweater with the yarn I had ordered from knitpicks a while ago. It came in about a week ago, but I was desperately trying to finish my scarf before casting on a new project. If I try to work multiple things at once, I pretty much just focus on the newest thing and ignore all the old things I’ve started, which explains a box full of UFOs. And I didn’t want the lace scarf to be banished to that box.

Yikes. Rambling. So here is the start of my sweater.

I was so panicked because my gauge ended up being smaller than the pattern called for. So I’m working the 34″ pattern, but it’s actually coming out to the size of the 32″ pattern. OOPS! I thought I was going to have to frog it and start over, but I decided to try it on first and get peoples’ opinion of the fit. And to my delight, it stretched enough to fit, but without stretching so much that it ruins the look of the pattern.

So for now it looks like it’s all going ok. I just really hope I don’t have problems when I come to the shaping along the neck and for the sleeves.

FO: My First Sweater!!! March 25, 2008

Well, my friends, I’ve done it!!! My very first sweater is FINISHED!!! And here I thought making a sweater would be scary because it would take forever… (lol I’ll ignore the fact that I chose a beginner’s pattern….)

So since this is one of the bigger projects I’ve worked on (I actually did start a blanket once, but that’s a UFO for another story) it soon became the target of many kitty attacks. Here is one such instance. (She thinks she’s so cute! Look at that smug face! Grr!!)

Anyways, so the only real change I made to the pattern was the sleeves. I didn’t really want cap sleeves as I prefer the way ¾ sleeves look on my arms. So the first time I knit the sleeve, I didn’t make any decreases and just made a straight tube with my size 8 dpns and guessed on the length I should make it. But then when I tried it on it looked so strange.

As you can see, it was baggy in all the wrong places and the bottom rows of ribbing did the weirdest thing! I didn’t knit them long enough, so where they sat was exactly on my elbow. So any time I moved my arms, it would fold in this permanent crease halfway down the ribbing so it would just constantly pucker funny. Yeah, that got frogged fast.

So my next go with the sleeves went perfect. I decreased 4 stitches per stripe (13 rows each stripe) and managed to keep them lined up underneath the arm so they stay hidden. Yay!

Yeah, so here’s the picture! What do you think?

• And since I’ve started doing Finished Project pages, here is the link to the details of this sweater.
  
• And while I’m at it, I’ll even link to the Ravelry page for it! Wow! Fancy!
  

Oh yeah, on a different note, I just got Microsoft Word 2007 on my computer, so my blog posts might start looking a bit different since I’m using it’s “New Post” feature to see if it’s much easier than editing from straight inside of WordPress. I dunno, I might not use it again if I don’t like how the posts start looking. Plus I don’t like that I can’t use external photo hosting sites when I want to post pictures. They all have to get uploaded into my WordPress account, which might fill up kind of fast. Hopefully not. I haven’t looked into how much storage they allow you to have with your free blog.

If there’s anything you like or dislike about the way pages start looking, let me know and I’ll see if it’s something I can fix. Sorry if the pictures take a long time to load.

$0 in Paris: MY FIRST SWEATER! March 16, 2008

So a few posts ago I said that I was planning on making the Thermal sweater and that it was going to be my first ever full size sweater! But I’ve made a liar out of myself.

The yarn I want to use for that project is out of stock and won’t be available until April (teaches me to fall in love with the same yarn type AND color that the pattern was written in!) and I’m too impatient to wait until April to start in on a sweater.

So I’ve started the $5 in Paris sweater. And so far it hasn’t cost me a penny in yarn because I’ve knit the whole thing in scrap yarn and partially used skeins that I had lying around after I made a few baby blankets last year.

So here are a few pictures. Sorry the 2 in the mirror are so dark, but I couldn’t turn on the flash without getting a picture of a blinding white mirror that needs to be cleaned.

(ooh. free yarn! the before picture:)

and off the shoulders:

So yeah, now I just have to get the sleeves made and I’ll be done! woot woot. Thanks Pepper for recommending this project with that other yarn of mine! I love how fast it’s knitting and it’s super comfy and cute!

Oh, and in other news I’ve started making Finished Project Detail Pages for the projects I’ve blogged about. So far I’ve only completed one page (the Bubblegum shrug) but I’m working on them when I get a chance. You’ll be able to see all the project details by clicking the “FO’S: Project Details” button on either the top right corner of the page or on the right in the sidebar. Anyway, it’ll be really nice when I’ve got them up and running. Then I won’t have to make my blog posts as long, either.