Another new project

    Quite a while ago, I found these really cute little baby booties on Ravelry. They are made with the Crocodile Stitch, which I personally can't stand. HOWEVER, these booties were the cutest thing I've ever seen.


    At the time, making them was doubtful. Then I decided to research the crocodile stitch, found a good pictorial and discovered it wasn't that hard. Suddenly, the booties were doable. Last night, I bought and downloaded the pattern. Today I will print it out, and hopefully I will be able to find a good yarn to use to make them with. Pending baby mama's approval, of course.

    Of course, they are made using a really small hook, and I usually hate using really small hooks. I promise I will give these my best shot. I don't have the name of the designer of these, but she is on Ravelry.

Still not crafting

    That's right, I'm hanging my head in shame. I just don't feel like it. Although I was on Ravelry this morning, looking at crocheted sweater patterns. My good friend Kim is crocheting a granny square shawl, and she's kind of inspired me to crochet something with sock or lace weight yarn, and not a too small hook.


    Anyone who knows me knows I prefer the bigger hooks. The bigger the better, really. I detest using any hook smaller than maybe a G or H.  And these days, I'm wanting to crochet a sweater. Or maybe a shawl. Who knows? But either way, I'll keep you updated!

What's next?

    I have finished the secret crochet project, and I'm wondering what's next. There's still Sara's sweater to work on, but I've got a hankering to knit something different. I've been looking on Ravelry, and haven't come up with anything yet.


    I'm also keeping an eye on my lilac bushes, waiting to see if any of the three will bloom this year. I have high hopes for Miss Kim. Only time will tell.


    When I got home this morning, I was not feeling all that well. I was very tired, and decided to go take a nap after Hubs left for work. Today wasn't a scheduled day for hm, but he was asked to come in and help. So I had a small cuppa coffee, ate something, did my farming chores on farmville, and then hit the bed. I got about an hour and a half's worth of nap. I didn't want to nap for too long, or there might be problems sleeping tonight.


    Now it's time to get a move on. I have some dishes waiting for me in the sink.

A knitting disaster and more

   I had one of those yesterday. Remember that sweater I was knitting with Malabrigo sock yarn? "Boxy" it was called. Well. There I was sitting at Karate with my good buds Kim and Jan, knitting away. I stopped to straighten out my knitting.


    You see, it's very curly, and sometimes I think I may have twisted it when I joined it. I was very careful when I joined it, I laid the whole thing our and made sure it was straight before joining.


    Well. It turns out that it wasn't straight. I've been wasting my time, this whole time, knitting away on something that now needs to be completely frogged. Kim was horrified. Me, not so much. I really wasn't in love with it anyway. But now I still have four skeins of black Malarigo sock yarn, and one called Azules.


    I went trolling on Ravelry, looking for sock yarn sweaters. I only got six pages. There were a couple I liked, but I am soooo not in the mood for knitting four flat pieces and sewing all those fracking seams.


    Then I went to Knitting Pattern Central. They also had a couple of interesting looking sweaters. But in order to see each sweater, you have to click on the name of it. As I was looking for sweaters made exclusively with sock yarn, the going was difficult to say the least. I was paying attention to the yarns called for in each pattern.


    I now embark on a mini-rant. WTF is with these designers? Not a single one tells you what weight yarn they used. That's all I want. Oh, and a large range of sizes is good too. That's for my friend Kim, that's her current beef. There was even one sweater that the pattern was only in ONE SIZE, and it was small. I mean, in reality, how many real adult, mature women are a fracking size small??


   In desperation, I went back to Ravelry, and widened my search to all sweaters. I looked at sixty four pages before gving up. Even there, there were patterns written for only one size. To be fair, one was written for an XL. But still.....


    OK, now I feel better, thank you. Well, this changes things. Now I will go back and work on Sara's sweater again, hopefully I will be content with that.

Knitting news

    For the past few days, I've been in funkytown again. I've not even wanted to knit or anything. My bestest knitting friend Kim suggested I look on Ravelry for something new to work on. As you know, I've been working on the same sweater pattern for a while now. Essentially, I've made the fracking thing almost four times. Well partially, anyway.


    I believe it is indeed time to put it down for a while and start something new. All afternoon yesterday I looked and looked. I couldn't find anything. So I thought I should take a look through my stash for inspiration. The first thing I found was that I had four hanks of Malabrigo sock yarn, in black. So I went back to Ravelry and looked at sweaters made with sock yarn. Then Kim suggested I might want to try Boxy, designed by Joji Locatelli. After looking at it, I decided she was right. So I purchased Boxy from Ravelry.


    Now I just need to explain to my beloved daughter that her sweater was depressing me, and needed to go into solitary for a while. Hopefully she will read this, and understand. Of course, this also means that my second one will also be put aside...


    To top it all off, I don't have the right size needle for this sweater, or I would have cast all those 390 stitches on last night. But once again, Kim is coming to my rescue and loaning me one of hers. Hopefully I can hold out until lunchtime....


    Reading that last paragraph reminded me; I don't think it is correct to use the term "casted on" when referring to knitting. I believe it is correctly called "cast on", even in the past tense. If I'm wrong, please inform me. That term was one of the reasons I stopped following another blogger. Oh, and her insistence on calling it "Raverly". Please re-read yesterdays post. (it seems to be getting worse as I get older...)

   

    

so what's next?

     OK. I know what I want to do next, another fabulous sweater! To refresh the memory, it's the Simple Summer Tweed Top Down V-Neck by Heidi Kirrmaier. It's a free pattern on Ravelry.


    I adored making this sweater, as you all know! And the best part was no seams to sew! I adjusted mine, first by not making three decreases for the waist, and then increasing; but doing three increases instead. I know my body, and I don't like things clingy around my middle.


   Secondly, I added thumb holes to the sleeves. When I finished the sleeve decreases, it was the perfect length, so I bound off three stitches that lined up with my thumb, then went back and forth a few rows, then reconnected by casting the three stitches back on. Then I did a few more rounds so it would curl, and voila!


   I was so excited when I was finished, that I threw it right in the washer when I got home. I was going to trim out the thumb holes with crochet, so they would be a bit sturdier. I did it after laundering. The sweater made it out of the dryer intact! It shrank a teeny bit, but it's not a problem. I notice that there are some pills on it, but that just makes it look "not brand new". I will probably shave it when I get more batteries for my sweater shaver.


    I tried it on for Hubs last night, and he really likes it! He even said he would consider having me make one for him too! His would be the crew neck version. I spent over an hour this morning, looking at different yarns, and making a list for him to see, about the yarns, and how much it would cost for each choice.


    I started at Patternworks, and then decided I should do KnitPicks too, since that was where my yarn came from. I actually found an acrylic yarn that would cost less than $20 for enough to make his sweater!  How much do you want to bet that's the one he chooses? It's cheap enough that he might be generous and let me get yarn for another sweater for myself, in the yarn I want!

Designing My Own Sweater, or Not

    I have been thinking recently about knitting a sweater, for myself, but designing it myself. In other words, I'm designing it in my mind.  I'm taking elements from different sweaters and putting them together. I would like to make a pullover, with wide ribbing at the cuffs. I would really like to put thumb holes in the long sleeves. I know of someone who did this, and I think it's a terrific idea.


    I want to make it in sock weight or DK weight yarn, on slightly bigger needles than recommended, so it's drapey. I also want to make it tunic length, to cover up my big rear end. It sounds to me like I need to re-read my Elizabeth Zimmermann book, all about how to design your own sweater. I would even knit a gauge swatch for it, so I would know how many stitches to cast on to get the size I want. Necessary evil.


    After writing those words ^ last night, I got out my books, and looked through them. I couldn't find what I was looking for. So today, after work, I went on Ravelry.com to peruse through the mountainous number of sweater patterns. Once I narrowed it down to pullovers, the number got much more manageable. Only five pages.


    Here is one that I found, that I really like:

   
    And best of all, it seems doable! It's called  Simple Summer Tweed Top Down V-Neck Sweater. It was designed by Heidi Kirrmaier, and it was a free pattern on Ravelry! YAY for free patterns!!


   I am not making any promises that I will definitely make this sweater, but I will certainly think about it, hard. Also, there were two sweaters by the aforementioned EZ in my list, which mentioned exactly which chapter in which book that the pattern appears! So I will go check that book again.


    I feel I must mention, that if I do make the above sweater, I will probably make the sleeves too long, so I can put the thumb holes in. I am quite adamant on those.