Lessons Learned - Part 2

After last week's heart-breaking debacle with my colorwork hat, I decided that it was going to be worth the time to re-skein all of the Miss Babs yarn (both the Dark Andromeda and Funny Papers colorways) and do a citric acid soak. (Read the first post.)

I compared the vibrancy of the non-treated yarn with my poor hat. You can see how muddied the colors are on the hat versus the skein. If I hadn't found this out so soon, I would have had a heart-break as big as a sweater. :-(

While the results of the hat were heart-breaking, at least it wasn't with a FULL SWEATER.

I had to take 3 cakes of yarn and turn it into skeins. I spent about 40 minutes re-skeining  and tying all of that yarn up for dye'ing. Yowza is 560 yards of yarn per skein.

 

Ball of yarn vs. skein

Then I followed the directions for the citric acid soak.

And microwaved it. The skeins were so big, that my cling-wrap couldn't contain all of it.

In addition, I put my in-progress sweater on waste yarn and repeated the process for it as well.

After all of the yarn dried, I had to re-cake all of that yarn, but of course, I still hadn't quite recovered from the heart-ache, and so I put the sweater aside for now, until I have the fortitude to come back to it.

Today, I sent Miss Babs an email about what happened. While I'm extremely disappointed, I still love her yarn and her colorways, but I'm afraid my trust is a bit broken. Any future Miss Babs yarn purchases will automatically get a citric acid soak before I start swatching for another project.

As an end consumer, I don't feel like I have to go through this step to enjoy a dyer's yarn. :-(

Small Sacrifices ...or a Lesson Learned

Sometimes, it's worth a small sacrifice to save the whole, I think.....

I had bought some of Miss Babs YOWZA yarn at Stitches West in a beautiful burgundy color and a coordinating variegated yarn for a sweater that I had in mind. Now, I've used Miss Babs yarn before WITHOUT any problems previously, but I'd never purchased any of her red colorways.

I dutifully made a swatch for my sweater. I washed and blocked the little swatch (perhaps 3x5 inches), which bled a little tiny bit, but nothing major. So, I started my sweater.

At the same time, I started a much bigger "swatch" in the form of a slouchy hat, because I wanted to make sure that the coordinating color worked well, and I wanted to see how many rows of the coordinating color I wanted to use as "stripes" for the overall sweater. I wanted to finish the hat before I got to the stripes of the sweater.

I proceeded to wash and block the hat; only to discover that the initial washing left the water a deep dark blood red....and completely muddied the beautiful colors of the coordinating stripes! The "white" parts of the variegated yarn are now a slight pink. And the red yarn has a slightly washed out look to it. :-(

 

(It's hard to tell from the photo, but the colors are definitely a lot more muddied after it got washed)

ARGH!!!!

The water was so filled with red dye that it stained my palms red. I used a paper towel to wipe up some spilled water, and it turned pink.

I can't imagine what this would do to my beautiful sweater once I wash it! Luckily, I'm only about 1/4th of the way through the sweater, so I figure I can do a citric acid soak with the incomplete sweater, the remained of the burgundy yarn, and the coordinating color. However, I'm going to have to skein up the balls of the YOWZA! yarn first, which is a HUGE ball.

I'm glad I figured this out before I got too far into the sweater. It's going to take me a bit longer to finish since I have to do these intermediary steps, but I'm glad I discovered this now. I had heard that reds were hard dyes to set, but I'm very surprised at how much dye came out in the washing!

I still love Miss Babs yarn, but I'm so very disappointed in this colorway.

Lesson learned -- treat the yarn BEFORE you start knitting.

Project Time Out

I've been on a sock knitting kick as of late. I had just finished my Hulky Invader (Zim) socks.

And I wanted to knit more self-striping yarn. I went through my Stash and found Electric Avenue by Stray Cat yarns. I previously had made  fingerless mits with it, but had plenty left over for socks.

I managed to finish the first of the pair but broke a set of knitting needles (US 0).  However, on the second set, I broke 3 sets of needles before I even got to the heel!

And to make matters worse, I misplaced the first of the pair! Needless to say, I was extremely frustrated, so I've decided to put this project on "time out" until I am ready to tackle it again.

And not to mention that I need to buy more US 0 needles before I finish it.

Knitting Attacks!

The other day, I went to my local archery range to help volunteer for a tournament event being held along our woodland trail. I was manning a first aid / refreshment stand half way through the course. It was a beautiful day in the woods. I got to meet a lot of archers as well as get some knitting done during the down times. I brought along my Doctor Who cowl as it's easy enough stockinette that's easily put down without issue whenever archers arrived at the half-way point.

When the tournament was winding down, I started hiking back to the beginning. I was walking along the trail for about 100 yards when I realized that my knitting dropped from my bag...or at least the knitting portion. The ball of yarn was still in my bag. The trailing yarn was wrapped along various twigs, plants, and rocks. I grabbed the ball of yarn (still in my bag) and started winding back when a very nice person started coming towards me with my unfinished cowl in his hand and yarn trailing behind him. OY!

Oh, only if he had left it where he found it, but he was being a good Samaritan. Alas, now the yarn was a tangled mess. I picked a random spot and started winding another ball from there. I managed to get most of it under control, then stuffed the whole thing in my bag to figure out how best to untangle it at home.

I was seriously hoping that I wouldn't have to break the yarn, but I knew it was a pipe dream. I just wanted to save as much of the yarn as possible.

When I got home, I started the de-tangling process. Here's about as far as I got before I decided that the tangled mess was too tangled and small enough to just ditch. I was picking out bits of leaves, twigs, and other forest debris from the yarn.

I did break the yarn at one point and re-attached the good ball back. I'm definitely going to need to soak this after I'm done.

Disaster Averted

I had moment of panic when I pulled out a project for some meeting knitting and realized that I broke a needle.

I think it snapped in my briefcase. It was fine the last time I worked on the project yesterday. Luckily, only one broke. I pulled the needles out of the sock, flipped the needles around, and was able to continue knitting. 

Disaster averted, as I thought I'd have to sit for an hour without a project. Later, I will need to pick up a replacement. Or maybe I can find a very small pencil sharpener?

Broken Arrow

Last night, I had a broken arrow...errm...needle incident that nearly resulted in lost stitches. I was trying to finish up one last round before I had to run out the door.

And, wouldn't you know it? I had a catastrophic failure on my Knit Picks interchangeable needles. Essentially, the cable came out of the actual connector attached to my interchangeable circular needles, and it dropped 1/3 of the stitches (out of 500+) when the cable pulled back!!!

I had to do some really quick patch-up of the problem, by grabbing another circular needle and picking up what had dropped. Luckily, this was wool & mohair so the stitches stayed put rather well, all things considering. But it was a RIGHT PAIN IN THE ARSE! (And made me run late, because I couldn't just leave the stitches hanging!)

After stabilizing the patient...er...my knitting...to the point where I was reasonably satisfied that I no longer had a broken arrow situation, I set it aside carefully so I could fix it when I got home. (There was also some dire warnings to DH to not touch it or let anyone --- cough the cats cough get near it.)

When I finally got home, it was surgery time, and I carefully moved all of the stitches onto a new cable, and all was right and happy again. (And yes, I haven't gotten very far. I'm only on Welt 4.)

Then took the broken cable needle, connector, and some superglue to see if I could repair the damage. I'm not sure WHY it broke like that, but it's been a fair number of years since I bought the set and these cables have seen a fair amount of use. Plus, I know there must have been a heavy strain on these particular ones as it's holding a fair number of stitches and I've been constantly re-arranging the distribution of fabric as I knit. So, I'm going to put this down to just general "wear-and-tear" versus any manufacturer error.

Sometimes, you just have to walk away

I have this hat pattern. It's a pretty hat, and lots of people have knitted it. I very much like this hat.

The instructions are not overly complicated but not exactly all that simple. It's got tons of simple cabling in it. I've liked this hat for a while and had gotten it a while ago, but just haven't knitted it.

But apparently, I am completely incapable of reading *single* page of instructions correctly....several times. Apparently, I can't count either. I've had to frog several times, including ripping out the WHOLE thing 2x. *sigh*

• I couldn't count stitches correctly -- cast on 104 -- even with all the stitch markers I used, so when I start the cabling, everything was off by a single stitch. FROG back to the ribbing to reduce the number of stitches.
• Then when I get everything ready, I am unable to count a simple 8 stitches in order to do my cabling. FROG to the ribbing
• Then I couldn't actually *read* the initial ribbing part correctly (k1, p2, k1), which is a 2x2 rib (k2, p2), but you have to make sure you start at the right first stitch (k1) instead of starting with the k2 in order to get the cabling to line up correctly. COMPLETELY FROG in order to start all over again in frustration.
• Then I thought that I'd do a tubular cast-on to make a better edging since I had already frogged completely.. Apparently, despite having done this many many times, I am still unable to count correctly. FROG the cast-on 2x.
• And then, (this might have been an honest assumption, except that I didn't actually *read* the entire pattern first), I thought the "written" directions was a translation of the chart, because it had the same exact number of rounds. INSTEAD, the written directions were for the crown, and I couldn't understand why it was decreasing so fast to make such a small hat. FROG BACK to the ribbing.

Needless to say, I had to walk away from the whole thing for several hours as my frustration level was growing. I had started this hat on the 4th. I should have been finished by now.

le sigh

But, apparently, I am on the "right" track now (knock on wood), although I will be using lifelines at the finish of each repeat, because given the history of this hat, I'm bound to make yet more mistakes.

I guess it's a good thing that this hat is a lovely green for all the frogg'ing I've had to do. There are some days, where I just feel prettier than I do smart. *sigh*

Frog

I started a new sweater (Cerisara by Bonne Marie Burns)  last week, And I finished up the lace portion of the back and started in on the next band, when I realized I was making the HUGE size sweater.

See, Bonne's Marie's patterns are awesome but are slightly smaller than what I would think of as "my size", so I have to go one size up. For her last two sweaters I've made, they fit well, but I would have liked to have more *ease* so I really should have made the next size up.

However, when I was looking at THIS pattern, I didn't see that she steps up her increments by FOUR instead of TWO (like other patterns)

So her other patterns read sizes as: 32, 34, 36....
This one reads her sizes: 34, 38, 42.....

I'm used to just looking at the THIRD sizing in for her patterns instead of, well, you know, actually READING the pattern. So I started making the 42" instead of the 38".......

I had to rip back 10 inches of lace work....*cry*

AND I just realized the silk / merino that I'm using grows a bit when I actually block & wash, which means that I was actually making THREE sizes bigger than I should have....

In a way, I'm glad to have started ripping, because I now realized I should be making the 34, as this yarn "grows" a little bit, which should put me at a 36".

But....10 inches....

I would have really hated to have
a) run out of yarn
b) make something that would fit someone 3x bigger than me....

But....10 inches.....

Vacation from Knitting

Sadly, I have to take a whole week's vacation from knitting. All of last week, every morning I would awaken with pain in the knuckle of my left middle finger and limited movement.

Ibuprofen cream did wonders for it, and I wasn't sure what was causing it. In previous weeks, I had this issue, but it was an occasional twinge -- and I thought perhaps I had strained it or whatnought.

But after a relatively intense knitting period of socks just before bed time (on Size 2 needles) left me wondering. Maybe it was because I started using smaller & smaller needles? Maybe my grip is too tight? (I knit continental, and my middle finger helps hold the needle in place, while the left index finger holds the yarn.

The next day, I opted to not work on those socks, but work on the sleeves of my Ribby Cardy (size 6 needles). Again, the pain was there in the morning, but not as bad.

So, I'm going to be taking a week off of knitting to let my finger rest, and see if it still bothers me...or if it's something else. (DH wonders how I'm going to survive the week....)

So, in leiu of knitting in the evenings, I shall be spinning, because I really don't use that finger for it.

Forgetfulness....

This morning, I packed up to go to work, and grabbed an UFO that needed finishing. I figured that I'd finish it at lunch as the last bits of it are "easy" and totally do-able during lunchtime. I grabbed my toolkit bag, with my crochet hooks so I could pick up the necessary stitches to finish. I even remembered to grab the pattern.

See anything missing? I didn't.....

Then, lunchtime comes around, and I'm really looking forward to finishing the UFO because, well, it's been languishing. I pull it out...and realize that I completely...
left...
the...
needles...
at...
home....

*facepalm*

I had taken them out of the bag to finish another project that needed the bigger needle size.

Luckily, I had my "to-go" project in my bag as well...basically my emergency portable project, so I wasn't totally without knitting...but oy!

When Knitting Attacks: Sweater

I finished gauge swatching for the Ribby Cardy by Bon Marie Burns (Ravelry link).

And surprisingly, I've gotten gauge on the first set of needles I've tried (US 6). O also tried a swatch at US 5s and US6s but the blocking/washing still puts me at correct gauge at US6s.

But, better safe than sorry, yes? For big things like sweaters, where it might take me a month to complete, I'll definitely swatch religiously. On smaller projects, like hats & socks -- not so much.

Luckily, the swatch went without a hitch. HOWEVER, the actual knitting has been problematic at best.

I cast on the sweater, and am 5 inches into it since the July 4th weekend, and it's been slow going due to various errors (on my part, not the pattern). Why? Because I rewrote the pattern to do it in-the-round (about 2 weeks ago), and I was second-guessing myself, AND I'm not reading my own damn pattern notes OR I put in not-so-detailed notes to my modifications. Consequently, thus far, I've had to:

1) begin 2x over, because I couldn't count correctly, which lead to the incorrect number of stitches.

2) frog a few rounds, because, apparently, I can't keep read a pattern. (Several times over.

3) I had to drop down more than a few stitches, because I'd switch a purl to a knit or a knit to a purl....multiple times over...and not notice until a few rounds later.

I'm only FIVE INCHES and it's been nearly a WEEK since I started.

Knitting Mojo

In an effort to get my knitting mojo back from the disastrous and EPIC fail project using my lace-fingerweight handspun on the Torreyana pattern (Ravelry link), I've been working on very small and easy projects.

Last night I started working on another simple project -- this time a shawl -- with a simple lace pattern using some commercial fingerweight yarn just to assuage my fear that I can't do a lace shawl. And, so far, so good. The pattern is relatively easy to memorize and I haven't had problems with the fingering weight yarn.

Afterwards, I'll try swatching the Torreyana with commercial fingerweight and see if things go well. If it does, then it just might be this project is not right for my handspun or I have trouble with something thinner than fingerweight (4-ply) yarn (as the handspun is heavylace-fingering weight, but more lace)

If it doesn't go well, then this lace pattern might be too complicated for me to tackle readily...just yet.

When Learning Lace...

When doing your first actual "lace" shawl project, it's probably best to start off simple and *not* do something so complicated.

Last night, I started the chart on Torreyana pattern from Knitty with my Japanese Maple homespun.

And, it's NOT reading the pattern that is complicated or hard, but the combination of:
1) really really having to pay attention
2) never really having done *lace* before
3) homespun that's slightly still active....

Ergh. Not a good combination. I ended up with knots, wrong # of stitches, dropped stitches, etc. I had to rip out & start over multiple last night before I gave up after two hours. I thought to just get through the swatch, but I can't seem to get 6 rows into it without *something* going wrong.

And, can I say that working with such thin yarn? I ended up fighting with it more than enjoyed the whole process. It was a nail biting experience and that's JUST with the swatch. I'm not wholly sure I would enjoy knitting this pattern with my oh-so-lovely-homespun.

If I used a worseted weight yarn, I might be able to get through the swatch without problems. I just don't think it's going to happen with my homespun. *sigh*