WIP Wednesday - Ritalin and sweater edition

WIP Wednesday again! I had to re-start my Ritalin cowl. I realized that I don't have enough of the teal yarn to make the cowl as long as the pattern calls for. I'm disappointed because I really wanted a long cowl. Maybe I'll do it again sometime with more yarn. Anyway, I'm making it half the size now - I cast on 126 stitches, on 24" circular needles. I think I'll like it as long as it's long enough for me - about 30" or so. (The yarn is cotton, viscose, and silk. This is a warm weather cowl. I don't want it to be snug at all.) If it comes out too short, I will give it away. Here it is so far:

The eyelet row surprised me. I wasn't expecting the holes to be so big! It looks cool, though. It's a quick knit at this length. After the raspberry color, I'll do the teal, and then mint green. These colors look so great together. The photo really doesn't do them justice.

I really love Debbie Bliss Cathay. It's one of my favorite yarns. It's also been discontinued. I wish I could stock up on it via Ravelry - lots of people "de-stashing" it - but financially, now is not the time. I also used this yarn for my Cranberry Cowl, pictured in this blog post (it's the #09 Cowl pattern). It's a little splitty, but the texture is delicious and the colors are amazing.

After last week's post, I finished the left front piece of my Liwen (or Design Three or whatever the heck it's called) jacket/sweater:

Yay! I finished a piece of a sweater! Ha. Now I just have the right front, back, sleeves, and neckline/border to go, and then I'll have to block it and sew it all together. What a daunting project. Fun, though! I haven't started on the right front yet since I've wanted to knit fairly mindless stuff for the past week, but I'll start it soon. I really hope the finished sweater will fit me. It's hard to tell, but the yarn is very stretchy. We'll see. It's definitely not going to be oversize, but I knew that when I started.

It's WIP Wednesday again!

Yes, it's that time again. Sorry for not posting last week, but I really didn't have much to post. This time, I've made a little more progress on my sweater:

Again, this is the left front panel. I've done some armhole shaping and neckline shaping, as well as more cabling (woohoo!). I haven't done more only because this pattern involves some serious work keeping track of which row you're supposed to do what. It's not the best pattern ever, but I'm pushing through it because I want the finished result. Others have done it successfully - so can I! (Right? I sure hope so.) Anyway, in order to work on this I have to really concentrate, and I've been on some painkillers lately for a medical condition and have been a little afraid to work on the sweater while dopey.

Here's a cable close-up:

I have also started a Ritalin Cowl which has been somewhat disastrous so far. I twisted the beginning row by accident and tried to fix it and wound up with some weird-looking stitches that I've decided not to go back and fix (it's such a long cowl that I doubt anyone will notice a few wonky stitches on the seam, though of course you might now - oops). The cowl starts with 6 rows of moss stitch. Easy, right? So I sat down to work on it last night (when I was also doped up on painkillers). Bad idea. I picked it up in the middle of a row, and wound up working in the wrong direction! D'oh!! Thankfully, I noticed what I was doing fairly quickly. I still have to undo the damage, but it shouldn't be so bad. It's just discouraging. And here I was looking for an easy knit.

I'm using these colors:

I think it's all Debbie Bliss Cathay yarn, but the gray and teal were both given to me without labels. Anyway, I've started with the gray and am going to use the colors in this order (left to right). Should be very pretty, if I can manage without totally screwing it up. Haha. I do find it funny that I'm working on 2 projects and of the 2 of them, I screw up the easy one and not the complicated one. I'd better stop laughing about it before I mess up the other one, too! ;-)

WIP Wednesday - sweater progress

I thought I'd give an update on my Liwen/Design Three project, seeing as how it's WIP Wednesday and all.

I've been working hard since last week! Again, this is the left front portion of the sweater. I got through the moss stitch with some mistakes, but mostly OK. (Decreases look better when you finally figure out which way they should slant.) Got through the ribbing portion and on to...

CABLES! I have been dying to do cables ever since I started knitting a few years ago. I just thought it would be so complicated. Guess what? It's not. It's fun. And the results? Woohoo, pretty twisty things! I am totally smitten.

WIP Wednesday

I'm currently working on my very own Liwen Jacket (aka Design Three) by Jenny Watson. From the moment I first saw the pattern picture, I knew I had to have one.

I am a big fan of moss stitch - I love the texture it makes. This sweater involves a whole bunch of things I've never done before - ribbing, cables, picking up stitches. It's very exciting. I really, really hope it turns out OK! But I'm getting way ahead of myself. So far, I'm on Row 20 of the Left Front Panel. (The pic below was taken a few rows ago.)

I got gauge with my Knitters Pride Trendz acrylic interchangeable circs in size 11. Acrylic would not have been my first choice, but my other size 11s - Knit Picks interchangeables - are in use for a blanket I've been making for a while. Besides, the acrylics work fine with this yarn, and they're PURPLE! Love me some purple.

I'm using Araucania Tepa yarn in colorway 1781, which is mainly turquoise but also contains a rainbow of other colors. I'm completely in love with it. It's exquisite. A birthday present (WEBS gift card) from my best friend paid for about half the cost of the yarn, and I splurged on the rest. I could never, ever wear it against my skin, but it's a jacket - meant to be worn over a shirt anyway.

Here's the Tepa when I first got it, brand new in its bag. Now, before you go and say, "That's a lot of yarn!" you might want to think for a second. When you tell a knitter the amount of yarn for a sweater she's making for herself is a lot, you are, in effect, telling her she's fat (or maybe just that she's making a really oversize sweater - which I'm not). Am I thin? No. Am I plus size? Yes. Do I want to be reminded about that by people saying "Wow, that's a lot of yarn!"? NO. And that's the end of that rant.

(Yes, this is something that happened fairly recently. Facebook drama, woohoo.)

This sweater/jacket was started Monday night, then frogged and re-started twice! I'm sure there will be more frogging ahead, but I will be brave! I can do this!

I really hope it'll fit well. The finished bust size is the same size as most of my sweaters, but it decreases in places where my body doesn't really decrease (ahem, waist), so we'll see. If it doesn't fit well, maybe I can alter it somehow.

About that blanket I'm making:

It's also still a WIP, so there it is. Sorry about the messy not-woven-in ends there in the middle. They'll be fixed eventually. It's straight garter stitch in a bulky cotton chenille. I know I posted about it in this blog before (probably last year). I'll be working on it for a while yet.

At long last, some pictures.

I just uploaded a whole bunch of pictures to Flickr, so I guess it's time for some show & tell. :)

Here's my work so far on the Spiderweb Cardigan (crappy yarn and all):

The yarn has a tendency to split, so there's some funky stuff going on, but I still think it looks pretty. If it continues to work up like this, I think I may come out with a decent sweater. :)


This is a bag that I'm working on. Nothing too fancy. No real pattern, though it's loosely based on this.



And another bag:

That is my work thus far on the Donnell bag. (Click here if you'd like to see another pic of mine.) I will post a picture or two when it's finished, of course.


I have more pictures to post, but I'm saving them for other entries. Yes, it's another Image Bombardment Day, courtesy of Alexis. Enjoy! Hope your connection is fast...

Smiley's Yarns makes me all smiley!!

Remember that load of yarn I ordered from Smiley's Yarns that I posted about just the other day? It's already here! Granted, it didn't have to travel far--they're in Queens, NY--but I am so very impressed. And overjoyed. The Bernat Sox colors are only OK, in my opinion, but it was cheap and now I get to make socks. :)

The Red Heart Symphony yarn is nice and fuzzy and should work well for the capelet I want to make with it.

The Bernat Handicrafter Cotton? YUM. Will have to make some nice things with it. I have some good colors for stripes. Hmmmm.

I have been working on the Spiderweb Cardigan from my last post. It took me a relatively short time to realize that my gauge was actually WAY smaller than what the pattern called for! Frog time. Ribbit. I am going to try using my K hook instead of the H. I even wanted to try my L hook, after what people have said about too-small armholes; but I can't find it! *gasp* I'll just have to see what happens with the K. This pattern is going to be quite the experiment for me. Maybe not the best choice for my first sweater, but I love a challenge. ;)

nice yarn versus...

Yesterday, I decided that I really wanted to make this sweater from the spring 2007 issue of Interweave Crochet:



I had already known I wanted to make it, but I had thought I would bide my time. Suddenly, yesterday, it became "Now now NOW!" Oy vey.

I did not own the amount of sport weight yarn called for in this project, much less the amount of fancy-schmancy sport weight cotton yarn called for. So I made a deal with myself. After spending some time at last night's KUTI meeting (which was lovely, but I had to leave early 'cause I wasn't feeling well), I decided that, if I could find suitable yarn for the sweater at the Wal-Mart across the street for $10 or less, I could make the sweater.

Imagine my excitement when I found sport weight Red Heart "Baby Soft" yarn, and enough of it only cost me 7 bucks! Sweet, right?

Not really.

The yarn is crappy. I mean, maybe it's OK for certain other projects, but it is not soft (funny that), and of course it is not at all cotton-like (100% acrylic). I am making the sweater out of it anyway--it's my first sweater, so I may as well use a very affordable yarn because I may well screw it up. And if it turns out right, it will still look pretty, but it won't have anywhere near the same nice drape that the cotton would.

*sigh*

I am considering getting enough worsted weight cotton yarn for the sweater and just using a smaller hook, but I'll see what this one comes out like first.

Are there any affordable, easy-to-find sport weight cotton yarns out there? I haven't seen 'em, but that doesn't mean they're not there... ;)