Of cotton sweaters and frog ponds

The birthday socks were delivered, so I can show them now. These are for the daughter who has many Dr. Who items on her Etsy shop. She has stitch markers, earrings, necklaces and posters among other things. The socks seemed perfect. They represent a TARDIS box, which is what Dr. Who uses in his time travel.

I'm still battling with the cotton sweater. After frogging the back down to the armholes, I finished it in a size that fits me. I knit one side of the front and sewed it on. It's starting to look like I want, although the neck decreases didn't work out as originally figured. I knit the other side of the front and sewed that on. The button side was bigger, by about an inch. No wonder my decreases hadn't worked out the first time. What you see here was frogged to the armhole (sound familiar?) and reknit after finding I was running out of stitches near the shoulder.I an getting tired of this!

I pouted and pondered and when I went to knit night at the yarn store, I decided to try edging the sweater. I'm using a two stitch I-cord. Got home from the yarn store, and frogged the buttonhole side of the sweater until I had about an inch left. That was the part that matched. I'm moving my way back up again. By the way, the button is an antique mother-of-pearl button from my mother's button box.The color is perfect with the ecru cotton and there is a design inscribed on it so it's not monotonous.

Perhaps you are wondering how I could have so much trouble with following a pattern. the problem is that I took a sewing pattern for a jacket and put it on graph paper, using one square for each inch of pattern. I then got stitch and row gauge off the sweater I was dis-assembling and am trying to figure how many increases/decreases for each inch of shaping.The decreases from waist to neck would have worked out on the first front piece if there had enough stitches when I got to the waist.

There are times when I'm sure I am, crazy for continuing on this project. I wonder if there is bad luck in the yarn. This is the third sweater for the variegated yarn. Sweater #1, a long time ago, was poorly written pattern and the yarn didn't work. I had combined it with the ecru at that time. Version #2 was the result of a class with Lily Chin on color. The fabric is a three color seed stitch.After the class, I was able to pickup the country green that blends well with the other colors. I'm keeping the seed stitch fabric and I hope that the third time is a charm on the knitting. As I keep frogging, I wonder! The good point is that the fit will be good.

Sweater Fail

Once in a while, even experienced knitters don't think things through! A couple of years ago, I had a great idea. I had a sewing pattern that I was in love with. I had a great knit fabric idea. The problem is that i thought they went together. I didn't think through the fact that the sewing pattern was designed for soft drapey fabric. What I knit was not drapey.

I really went wrong when I added the edge pieces. While I wasn't entirely happy with the result, I wore it a bit. Then I lost weight, a lot of weight. I'm rethinking all my clothes, and being surprised how many of them are still wearable. This was not!

I still like the fabric, a three color seed stitch. I'm turning it into a fitted jacket, which is much more appropriate for the fabric. The yarn is dishcloth cotton. I see lots of ecru dishcloths in my future. At least I can give them as gifts. They will go with any kitchen.

Dis-assembly has started. It looked like this this morning. Missing from the photo is what used to be cuffs on the sleeves.  The second sleeve has turned into balls of yarn and the sweater back is above the armholes now.

The new sweater back is much smaller than the original. Part of the difference in in the intended fit of the garment, fitted rather than loose. Of course the number  of inches lost on my body also figures in.

I started this project because my other non-sock project was stuck. I had run out of yarn a few yards from the finish line. That's what I get for making the shawl a little bigger. When I got to the point where the pattern said I had used about half of the yarn, I was just into the second ball of three. New yarn was ordered. It's even the same dye lot. I ordered two more balls, so I can knit socks or something out of the rest of it. It didn't come into my house alone though. enough yarn for three more pairs of socks joined the crowd. I'm trying a couple of new things and I fell for the free shipping hook.

The shawl is called Haruni. The yarn is Mini Mochi from Crystal Palace. It was not a hard knit and I love the edging. It seems like it took a million pins to block it. I have flexible blocking wires on the top edge. I should be able to wear it tomorrow to a Sivia Harding lace class that my guild is holding.

I guess I'd better figure out what to wear with it and then get myself to bed.

Thoughts on Designing

I've been thinking recently about shawl designs, and trying out a couple of ideas. A year ago, I was given two balls of Plymouth Zino, a sock yarn with long color repeats, and was asked to design shawls with them.

It's not so easy to create the pattern, while trying not to muddy the colors. Here's yarn #1. This is the point where I gave up on this design. I think it is the third try and I didn't want to rip it out again. I used one ball of yarn, and it is more of a collar because when I cast on, I misfigured and ended up with 3 triangles.

I like the stitch pattern. I'm not sure about the lace edging, or the 3 triangles. I wore the shawlette to TNNA earlier this month and got a lot of positive response, which was nice. I may still sell a version of this one.

The other ball of yarn was more muted/darker. I tired separate motifs with this one. I used a square set in the center back on the diagonal. When I finished the square, I left all stitches live. The side motifs are triangles, made of 2 sections of the square. The pieces were joined by looping the live stitches. I don't know if I can explain that in a pattern so someone else could do it. It was a good idea, but somewhat of a pain to do. The lace was worked directly on the live stitches. I tried working it perpendicular to the main pattern, which is the most common way to knit lace edgings, but the color blocks looked wrong.

I'm liking the lace edging. I tried knitting straight onto the edge, but the pattern is set up so that it doesn't flow well into the edging. The pattern for the square doesn't have a consistent number of stitches between segments, so I may not keep the charts for it. I decided to frame the motif section and then knit the lace edge. It's looking better so far. If I use the idea again, I'll try a pattern that has segments with stitch counts that are consistent, so the lace edge can flow smoothly from the pattern in the square.

This why I don't do magazine submissions unless I've already worked out the bugs in a pattern. The turn around is too quick for trial and error.

I've also designed a couple of pairs of socks after knitting other people's sock patterns for quite a while. I'm happy with this one, but haven't written the pattern yet. The charts are finished in their final form, So I just need to sit down with a little bit of time. I don't need to write the pattern all at once. I can do it in bite size pieces.

This sock has a cable on the foot that takes 2 cable needles, so it is fairly complex. I like how the leg transitions into the foot, but I need a better photo for the pattern. The photo of both socks shows some imperfections that I really didn't see in real life. The lighting needs to show the texture, but not show up problems I didn't know about. I did something a little different with the heel and gusset, and want it to show up in the picture.

I'm also working on some socks for my son. Stitch pattern A contained lace and cables. I thought I could rework the pattern to have a non-lace option by replacing the yarn overs with another increase. After 2 swatches, I decided that it was too much work and would not show up with the multicolor yarn I plan on using. The top swatch looks good, but the pattern is less defined on the lower ones. A new stitch pattern has been found that fits the stitch count and will be much easier to knit.

There are so many things to think about in creating a design, I was talking to one of my daughters about a child's sweater I have for sale on Ravelry. I designed this one a number of years ago. Recently someone contacted me with math questions about the armhole. I completely reworked the numbers to better fit the pattern repeat, created a new PDF, and uploaded the new PDF to Ravelry and Patternfish. Upon review of the pattern, I realized that I had learned a lot since the original writing.

Yes, we have snow

We've had over a foot of new snow this week. It's pretty, but I'd rather have it in smaller doses. My car doesn't have skis. I think this planter in my front yard has reached its limit too!

I've been thinking more about the emotional ups and downs of designing. It's sort of like a puzzle. When the pieces go together nicely, you're happy. When they don't you're frustrated. More frustration leads to depression and the feeling that you're never going to get it together.

I've been working on my Noro cardigan. I knit one square a day. I'll finish on Feb 5th. This is the second sleeve and I have one more button to make. I'm using the contrast color yarn for those.

A baby sweater is in the works. The body is finished and ready to cast off. My own pattern.

Socks are nearly finished. The contrast color doesn't always show up well. The pattern is Onion Domes from KnitNet.

Next week will have finished projects and a chance to start again. Next up, more socks and a shawl design. I also have to write the pattern for the baby sweater. This is the second time I've knit the design. Time to get it out into the world.