Right Front (among other things)

The Right Front of my cardigan is looking pretty awesome. Didn't get a chance to snap any pictures but I'm really digging the construction. It's very different from anything else I've knitted. But, who knows, maybe all cardigans are built similarly?

The "cool" parts are the button band and the pocket. When I first read through the pattern I was bit surprised at how tedious all of it sounded, but, now I'm glad I'll be able to learn new techniques.
So, with the button band... I knit about an inch at the bottom of the Right Front (and even made a button hole!) and then they had me put 12 stitches onto a holder and continue knitting the body. Once it's finished you'll pick up the live stitches and knit the button band while sewing it to the body. CrAzY! ... but awesome. The button band becomes the collar so I'll be knitting it up and attaching it around the neckline. Is that insane or what? ... I guess the "or what" would be that most cardigans are constructed the same way.

The pocket is another nifty little trick. Basically they had me knit a flat stockinette square. Once I got to the pocket hole on the Right Front I put 32 stitches from the RF onto a holder and knit the 32 stitches of the St st square in their place. Once I finish the RF I'll pick up those stitches and do a few rows of color, bind off, flip it over, and sew down the 3 remaining sides of the pocket. Tedious but AWESOME! =)

Enough of this cardigan construction excitement... how about a nice, simple, cotton dishcloth:



I keep feeling like I blogged about this already. Hmm.
Well, during the whole Log Cabin Blanket there was a point when it became to heavy and ungainly to carry around to my knitting groups so one day I showed up to Monday night with nothing. I had been wanting to do a wash cloth for a while so I picked up some cotton (forgot what it was called, but it's really nice) and a pair of needles and cranked out a wash cloth.



It's just some seed stitch and stockinette. I love seed stitch.

Knit hard. =)

Tastes like Cotton

I gained 6 lbs over the weekend. Yikes. I was surprised 'cause I kept pretty active all weekend... I did, however, indulge a bit on the eating side on Saturday and Sunday. Oops.

Well, I have more pictures for you. =)
I mentioned before that Deb @ Fishbed was having a Summer sale which mainly consisted of cotton yarns. I really don't use much cotton in my knitting. I did that one Coachella top in cotton but that was the only thing. .... actually... now that I think of it... those crochet bookmarks could be cotton. Hmm. I'll have to check.

Anyway, I was at her store for hours trying to decide what to buy. I could have skipped out on buying anything since I had no pattern or project ideas in mind but it was a sale! ... It wasn't just a sale it was a damn good sale. The yarn was 40% off!

I spent my whole afternoon there. I got in around 10:30 and stayed until 4:15 (with a lunchbreak in between).
I ended up buying this awesome cotton from Araucania.



I originally was drawn to the variegated. The colors looked so smooth. So, I grabbed a couple skeins and pondered for a while and decided on a granny square afghan. I figured I'd throw in a few other colors so my first instinct was to grab some browns or blues. Unfortunately none of the browns and blues in the Ulmo worked with the yarn I had. On a whim, I grabbed a skein of the purple and it just worked.

I played around with colors a bit more and decided I needed a 3rd... so, picked up a skein of red and it balanced everything out.



I still haven't decided on the exact squares I'm going to use. I 'swatched' the variegated in the traditional granny square and I'm kinda digging it. There's another square I want to try out where the only open spaces are the corners of each 'round' so you create an X of open spaces rather than a checkery-grid thing. I'd rather have the variegated be the more.. dominant color so I think the more solid X square would work best and then I'd use the traditional granny square for the solids. We'll see. =)



Knit (and crochet) hard!

Pictures for the last post

I took pictures this morning (at the cost of being quite late for work).
I'm actually still at work so for now I'll just share my sweater.



Mmm, RYC Cashsoft. It was one of the first 'nice' yarns I ever purchased. I loooooved it back then and I still love it today. It's really soft and it has an almost silky feel... plus it's machine washable. Go figure.



I finished the back last night. I had hoped to finish it earlier but I encountered a few setbacks.

1) I got engrossed in Stargate SG-1. I think for each sweater I'll watch a new TV series. I've never seen Stargate so I started from the beginning and I've been using it as a knitting aid.
After shaping the armholes I needed about 9.5 inches of ribbing. After watching a good third of the first season I realized that I had 12 inches of ribbing. Oops. I considered ripping back but instead chose to meticulously tink.



2) During the 9.5 inches of ribbing a ball had run out and so I joined a new one. On my return row I knit one of the tails that crossed my needle and resultingly increased one of the 7 stitch rib columns to 8 stitches. I didn't realize it until I had reached the top and was doing shoulder shaping and couldn't figure out why my 2 shoulders weren't decreasing symmetrically. o_O So, I ended up ripping back about 5 inches.



3) I shaped the first shoulder completely wrong. For some reason I was decreasing at the beginning and end of each row... I was actually only supposed to be decreasing at the neck side. I bound off the shoulder and realized my count was all off so I ripped back and realized where I had gone wrong.


So, that's the back. =) I was going to Cast On for the Right Front last night but decided to knock out early. I will be casting on tonight though. Hopefully all the mistakes I've made in the back have fulfilled the karmic error quota and the rest of my pieces will flow a bit more smoothly.

Update?

I haven't had a chance to take pictures but I have some new projects and yarns going on. I thought I'd share.


On the needles:
I have this awesome cardigan from Knitting for Him. It's mainly grey with a dull lime-green edge. I ended up using an eggplant-ish color for the edge. Totally digging it. I'm about 3/4 finished with the back.

Did I mention my insane idea to attempt a sweater a month? So far it's looking pretty doable. Actually... I still have 2 fronts and 2 sleeves to go. Hmm... and of course the whole putting together of. Yikes. I think I'll try to finish the back tonight so I can get started on the rest.
The sleeves are done flat and then seamed... but I'm thinking of doing them in the round... 2 at a time. Is that crazy? I'd imagine the pattern wouldn't be too hard to adjust, and I have about 20 rows of 2 round things at one time (on one circ!) under my belt. Hmmm... although... 2 flat pieces at the same time would be super easy... I'd just have to seam later. Well, I'll look into it and let you know what I decide.

I have yarn for...
I bought a bunch of chunky wool for my October sweater... which will be the sweater-a-long I'm doing with Nina, Ivi, and Amy7. The pattern for that is from this little pamphlet I bought from Wool & Co. It has an awesome collar.

Deb @ Fishbed had a big cotton sale... so I bought a ton of Arucania cotton in 2 solids and 1 variegated to crochet an afghan. I'm gonna be doing two or three types of really basic granny squares and putting them together. I still have to work out exactly how this will be assembled (e.g. can I connect a square to another as I'm working on it? ... can you do a square from outside in? etc).

For November, I found a cool Fair Isle sweater in a magazine... I think I might do it... just to be able to conquer Fair Isle and stranding... I have a feeling that it might actually take me more than a month to do a sweater like that though. We'll see.

Last night at knitting Deb got in this knitting magazine from Europe. It had about 8 sweater patterns for men (and 2 scarves!). So, I think one of the cabled sweaters will be for December.

So.. yeah, those are my projects right now. I also need to finish Amy7's grass, my double knit mittens, and an Irish Hiking Scarf. I think my enormous pile of hibernating UFO's will be frogged before the end of the year so I can move on with my life and not feel any project guilt. =) I actually have a Malabrigo sweater in that group that might end up being my January sweater.

Hopefully I'll have pictures for my next update!
Knit hard!