Reverting to Paper Patterns

Despite all my work on the various UFOs that had been languishing in my knitting basket, I was jonesing for casting on a sweater. I don't know when I turned into a sweater knitter, as the year before, I was all about knitting socks.

But now, if you look at my finished Ravelry projects, I've finished four sweaters this year, which isn't too bad, all things considering.

And I just started a new sweater, involving cables and double moss stitch. I was dutiful and made a cabled gauge swatch. Normally, I knit loosely and have to go down 2 needle sizes from the recommended needle, but as this involved cables, I tried the recommended US 7. However, I didn't like the resulting fabric too much as I felt it was too dense, so I went up to a US 8 and got gauge.

   

The swatches were washed & blocked, and I started knitting on the sweater. But I had to frog the beginnings of it once over, because I couldn't get the cabling correctly, because the front starts with a partial cable and as you increase stitches, you work the cable pattern. And my poor brain couldn't wrap itself around the concept, nor could I visually see how this was going to work.

I had re-written the pattern to work the sweater as a single piece (instead of having to seam panels), and my Excel spreadsheet was ACCURATE. However, it didn't take into account the visual aspects of the chart (although my iPad displays the chart easily enough.)

I had redid the cabling on both sides...frogged just the cabling...redid the cabling...then eventually frogged back to before the cabling started. sigh.

Then I hit on a simple solution: PAPER

My pattern is digital on my iPad, and my PDF reader has a nifty feature that allows me to highlight notes and some charts, but sometimes you need to have something in front of you that is visceral.

I printed out the cable chart and went through the pattern line-by-line with highlighter and pencil in hand, and marked out where increases happened and where it was the cable pattern for the Left Side. Then I repeated this exercise for the Right Side. Now I can clearly see how the cabling is going to look on the sweater.

Hopefully, this trick will help me get this patterning right.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Using my iPad for reading patterns is awesome. I love it. And I will continue using my iPad. But sometimes, it helps to mark up a paper pattern just for notes. (I'll still be using my excel spreadsheet to refer to as I knit, however.)

ComiCon - a Love/Hate Thing....

Ah, Comic Con has come & gone. I have not yet gone to San Diego Comic Con, which some claim is the mecca of all geeky-ness. Although, I have attended similar, but smaller events, like San Francisco's Wonder Con.

I have many friends who go, but it is something I have yet to attend. In fact, I have a love / hate relationship with ComicCon.

Love:

• a lot of geekyness can be had there.
• Some of my favorite stars, authors, and show producers/directors attend
• There are show previews and lots of swag
• Stuff that you only see at ComiCon. (Not that I need stuff, but it'd be interesting to SEE)

Hates:

• It's HUGE...50,000+ of your closest friends
• Lines. You stand in line to get in line, for the line of the panel you want to attend.
• You might only get to 1-2 panels the WHOLE weekend
• It's turned very commercial

I WANT to go AND, simultaneously, I have no desire to go :-(

It's a conundrum, I tell you.

But, perhaps one day, we'll make the trek to go to Comic Con, then to just say we had.

FO: Blue Steel & Granite

Shortly after July 4th, I finished my UFO shawl-ette that I apparently had started in September 2010 (according to my Ravelry page)! I hadn't realized it had been that long.

I had put it down with only 3 inches left to finish. I have no idea why I put it down, but it feels good to finish it. And I really love how it looks striped. The yarn coloration worked out well.

Finished UFOs...

I've been on a UFO kick -- as in finishing up some unfinished objects. I had been feeling ennui on starting anything new, and I was cleaning up some of my knitting and came across some UFOs that I thought, "What the heck? Let me finish these up."

1) I started knitting on a UF shawl object (Age of Brass & Steel) that I started a while ago out of my handspun, Targhee.

I have no idea why I put it down. I was about three inches from finishing. I'm currently working on finishing this project now.

2) I also managed to salvage a cardigan that I thought had to be frogged, but I procrastinated because it is knitted from pure alpaca and that is a royal pain to frog.

This particular sweater (started in '09) was the first cardigan I had attempted to knit, and had put down several times. I was nearly finished -- I had blocked the body pieces, seamed them together, and had added a hood. But the sleeves didn't work with the body, although I had followed the pattern exactly. I finally went back to Ravelry and read the comments --- a lot of people had issues with this pattern, esp. with things 'lining' up (heck, the body pieces didn't line up correctly and I had to do a lot of easing to make things work).

I had given up on the sweater and thrown it into the basket for a 'time out' because I was thoroughly frustrated with it. However, now that I had knitted several sweaters under my belt, I looked at the project with new eyes. I tried on the body and it did fit; it wasn't too badly off. The armscye was a little large, but a sleeve cap would help with that issue.

The sleeves were unusable w/o re-knitting them both. I could have picked up stitches around the armscye and knit 'after-thought' sleeves, but that would have been too much work and something I couldn't face doing considering how long this sweater had languished. So, I thought to myself:

"Self, why not turn this into a vest? You've done several already, and this would save your time".

And myself agreed. :-)

I picked up 87 stitches around each sleeve and knit several rounds of 8 roundseed stitch to form a sleeve cap (decreasing by 4 stitches total). Then I added a button & an i-cord button loop. About 1.5 hours later, I had a finished sweater vest, which pleased me mightily, as I really thought this project was a lost cause.

I still have a few UFOs still lazing about. We'll see if I get any more done after I finish the shawl. Although I have to say, it feels REALLY GOOD to get finish a languishing project.

Ravelry v. USOC

I'm sure a lot of you by now have heard the kerfuffle regarding the US Olympic Comittee and their very insulting cease & desist letter to Ravelry.

In case you haven't, here are the pertinent links:

• the cease & desist letter from the USOC legal council, which included terms like "disrespectful" and "denigrating" about our fiber arts
• this letter led to an outcry from the Ravelry community regarding the tone of their letter on the USOC FB, twitter, and webpage. Places like Gawker picked up on the news.
• The outcry led to a non-apology apology by the USOC Public Relations director, saying that it was a boilerplate letter and not meant to be insulting. There was another outcry from the Ravelry community about this non-apolgy apology. NPR picks up on the news.
• FINALLY, an actual apology is finally given. (And apparently, their use of "denigrating" and very insulting tone IS boilerplate for the USOC.)

As an athlete (and former Olympic hopeful), I was deeply saddened & angered by the actions of the USOC. I wrote them a letter from the POV of an athlete and a knitter decrying their behaviour.

However, I have to say, that as a fiber artist, I was very proud of the Ravelry community for sticking together to defend its honor. It's really truly worth while to know that this "grass-roots" community embodies much of the Olympic spirit -- to work together and triumph together for the good of the whole.

This amusing Comic by Worsted for Wear pretty much sums up the initial letter:

I can haz gloves?

My neice & nephew love asking me for knitted gifts. This year, during our annual trip with our in-laws, my Youngest Nephew saw that I was wearing a pair of fingerless gloves.

Because of our busy schedule, DH & I forgot to stop by the store to pick up a birthday present for him (the beginning of july) and bring it with us. I figured that I could just mail him a gift card (which he loves getting) instead.

But, just like last year, my nephew surprised me by asking for a pair of fingerless gloves for his birthday (which he again reminded me was coming up). And then he specified the colors he wanted. LOL. I had him try on my gloves, and while a little bit big on him, would at least last 1-2 years before he outgrew them.

Not wanting to be outdone, his older brother & sister immediately also asked for gloves too, but I told them that their brother would be getting HIS first and they'd get theirs for the holidays.

Now, I just to go pick up the appropriate color yarn from my LYS!

Steampunk Rocket Launcher

Rocket Launchers are cool. And for steampunk? Even cooler. I think there's a lot more interesting cultures around the timeline of Steampunk (if you think mid 1800s-early 1900s), and more interesting technologies than just "steam". So, when I thought about my Steampunk Mulan outfit, I thought of rockets. The Chinese have had a long history of rocketry and combustion. They had portable rocket launchers in the Ming Dynasty (14-17th C). Plus, in terms of firearms, the same time frame saw automatic pistols, howitzer cannons, gatling guns, and the ilk.

http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/32533-the-ming-dynasty-rocket-arrows/

http://www.richardwindley.co.uk/series-4-rocket-ballista.html

Now, imagine if they continued to evolve their rocketry science! (This is historical based fantasy after all.)

I decided to keep it simple however, because of time restrictions (about 1.5 weeks to finish), and went with the simple Chinese Rocket launcher, based on these plans.

The rocket launcher had to be light, portable, and the right size for me to sling across my back and swing to the hip when needed. The arrows I had picked up from the Sporting good store were about 26" long, so the launcher had to be of an appropriate size.

The trip to Michaels didn't yield enough balsa wood of the appropriate size, but it did give me a base starting point for the width. We decided that making it out of thick foam core board was an acceptable substitute (and save us time from having to run around even more looking for balsa wood). As soon as I got home, I made a prototype of 1/2 scale out of posterboard and masking tape.

Having tested the general shape, I started cutting out the foam core board -- top width of 4.5", bottom width of 3.6 inches, and 27.5" long. It came together easily enough, although I had a bit of a hassle making the inner support structures that would hold the arrows in place, but eventually I got it.

The whole thing was taped together with industrial strength tape. Then, it was modge-podged Sunday night, lightly sanded, then I added a coat of primer, and then the final coat of paint. (This took several days to ensure it dried well enough.)

I also made some harmless "rockets" to attach to the arrows out of red thick paper, but I'm did consider using confetti poppers instead (and attaching a long string down each one to allow me to pop each one individually...)

I found a very nice dragon stencil that I transfered over to a stencil film so that the outside could be decorated similarly to the actual Chinese launchers.

Then, it was just a matter of making the straps & the backstrap to fit it. Of course, on hindsight, I should have made the straps before putting on the stencil, so that the straps wouldn't cover it, but ah well. It still looked pretty awesome.

Fourth Sweater of the Year

I had been working on the Chic Knits Basic Hoodie since April 2012. Using some purple tweed of Cascade 220, it's been a really good knit. However, I did put it down a couple of times, especially to work on my Mogwai project that became my "popcorn" knitting (my own design).

I finally managed to get it done at the beginning of June. It took me nearly a full evening to hand-sew on the grosgrain ribbon on both button bands, as well as sewing on the wonderful hand-made wood buttons I had bought on Etsy.

I was trying to figure out how best to add the grosgrain ribbon onto the buttonhole side of the button band. I made a couple of different attempts, but I think I have found a solution that's not-so-elegant, but seems to work well. It involves grosgrain ribbon, pinking shears, and fray check. But before I write-up what I did, I want to see how well it holds up to a few wearings.

And, of course, I finished this sweater just in time for the hot weather to hit on our area. Ah well....

Chinese-esque Robe

As part of my Clockwork Alchemy costume, I had to create a Chinese-esque robe that would work with the leather armor. Again, pictures are worth a thousand words, and help cut back on the amount of writing I have to do :-)

I used some red linen with a inner gold lining.

And I found some matching red trim at JoAnne's Fabrics. I had to go to 2 different stores and ended up with 17-18 yards of trim. I had two requirements for this trim: a) it had to match the fabric b) I had to be able to machine-sew the trim (some trims need to be hand-sewn onto a garment due to its shape.)

17+ yards of trim was barely enough to line all of the edges.

I wanted to add Chinese frogs for closures, but I couldn't find anything commercially that would work as most stores only sell black or white frogs. So I opted to make my own using some gold trim we had in our Stash. I found an excellent online tutorial for the frog closure I wanted.

It was fiddly at first, but I got the hang of it.

Sufficed to say, I got some nice compliments on the outfit, and it worked really well with the leather armor.

Leather Armor

I've gotten minimal knitting & spinning done, because I'm trying to get my costume ready for Clockwork Alchemy. The leather leg guards have been completed. It’s not very heavy, and very wearable, except that you can’t really “sit” with it on, as its based on cavalry armor. However straddling a chair or a stool? Completely comfortable.

Overall, it’s been relatively easy to work on, except that it did take some time to complete, because this particular outfit can’t be just “sewed”....parts of it had to be molded to fit my body, which meant getting it wet, then letting it dry in the specific shape I wanted. Plus parts of it had to be glued down ...so that just takes time waiting for it to dry & cure.

Here's a pictorial essay, because, photos are much better than words:

Mockup

Templated Cuts

Molded Leather

Riveted Together

Bound Edges

Grommeted Belt

Completed Set

Right now, I'm working on the fabric portion of the costume, and have been sewing for the previous nights. I'll have photos of that later on when I get farther along.

Mogwai Project

Mogwai Projects

If you have listened to the podcast, Sandy & I talked about mogwai projects turning into gremlins, and how it can be avoided by following some simple advice:

1. Don't feed them after midnight --- ie. Don't start a project after midnight, or when you're tired
2. The light of day burns any gremlins into the ground --- ie. Waiting until the morning will put things in clearer perspective.

This was my mogwai project that could have easily turned into a gremlin.
It started with my Stained Glass handspun. I thought I wanted to weave with it (and even bought a warp yarn for it) but it's far too nummy to wrap onto a shuttle. I wanted to feel the yarn with my hands...hence knitting with it.

In addition, I had some other criteria for it:

•  it needed to be a form of neckwear, in particular, a scarf...and I HATE knitting scarves...but I wanted a skinny scarf to wear anywhere with anything that wasn't a "winter" scarf. * it had to show off the wonderful colors of the handspun.
•  it needed to incorporate some form of lace -- not a lot, just enough.
•  it should be a quick, easy knit --- preferably in the round and not involving garter stitch So I perused around Ravelry.

It seemed that a "tube" scarf might do the trick, but I wasn't overly happy with just knitting stockinette stitch. I saw a couple of diagonal or bias knit scarves (like the Clapotis), but it involved flat knitting and not conducive to a skinny scarf. I looked at one of the patterns that was close to what I wanted, and started knitting a few rounds, then not like what I had done. However, it was "close" to what I wanted. So, I ripped the whole thing out, and using the spirit of the pattern, I sampled a few more times.....And I frogged the project several times over because I either:

1. didn't like the width or
2. didn't like how I was turning out.
3. all of the above.

Eventually, I managed to get something that was exactly what I wanted, but it took the better part of 2 hours to get to that point. If I had started this project shortly after midnight, I would have been up for that length of time, TRYING to get it right and getting frustrated because I was tired.

Instead, I waited until the next day to cast-on, and give myself plenty of time to figure out the pattern while I was fresh. Now, it's turned into my "potato-chip" knitting. The colors of the handspun are working up really well. And it's soft and squishy to the touch.

I've had to put aside my Basic Hoodie sweater to work on this scarf, because it's been so addicting to knit...and I don't normally like knitting scarves!

So, disaster averted! My wonderful cute little Mogwai project could have turned into a nasty, ugly gremlin if I had not paid attention to the rules.

SPAKAL 2012

If you listen to the Knitmore Girls Podcast, then you're probably aware of their SPAKAL 2012.
This is a SPIN-along, KNIT-along for the next 8 months. You spin the yarn, then knit the chosen sweater (Eadon (ravelry link).

I've had my eye on this sweater as it's lovely. But, I also have 2 other sweaters for which I have plans to spin. Of course, I superceding those plans and looking to spin for the Eadon.

I opted to spin up my hogget fleece, Odie, a merino ram. And what a delight to spin!

I spun up a little bit of Ode @ 11:1 and did a ply back test, which didn't give me quite what I wanted. At 3 plies, it gave me about a sport weight. So I dropped the ratio down to 9:1

9:1 - Ply back test @ 2-3-4 plies

The ratio came a lot closer to what I wanted. A quick comparison on the WPI had the following:

I spun up three bumps of 3 ounces of Odie @ 9:1 which gave me a sample of yarn (about 44 yards) of a 3ply that I was very much hoping would have been worsted weight after being fulled. Unforutnately, it ended up being a DK / light worsted weight. I probably could have done a 4-ply to give me what I wanted, weight-wise, but I was really looking to do a 3-ply.

So, I made adjustments to the spinning wheel (changing out whorl sizes), and started another sample of yarn, which will hopefully yield what I am looking for.

And in an effort to regain some use of my full bobbins (from an earlier spinning project -- Gretta) for use with Odie, I plied up 3 bobbins according to my previous set of notes --- getting consistent yarn is all about taking careful notes about wheel settings --- and it came out beautiful and very much like my initial sample.

So, I guess I'll be spinning on 2 wheels for the next few weeks:
1) to finish spinning up the last 2 ounces of Gretta AND to regain some of the bobbins with her yarn
2) spin up the Odie sample, and get started on the SPAKAL

Sweater FOs!

So far, I've completed 3 sweaters this year (nevermind, I started one in 2011...)

But now, I need to take a small break from sweaters and knit a few socks. My sock drawer needs more filling.

Plus, I have to finish SPINNING for two more sweaters.

Leatherworking

In addition to your general Fiber arts and sewing, I do a little bit of leatherworking on occassion.

This time, I needed to work on a specific Steampunk costume -- Steampunk Mulan -- based off an artist renditioning thereof.

DH helped me drape out a pattern for the leather bits, and I tested out how the scales would look in muslin and how much of binding I would ned.

Then I took an old leather half hide that DH had for a long time, cleaned it, conditioned it, then let it dry (as it was curling on the ends) The old hide has some distinctive markings, so it'll look a bit more 'weathered'.

I cut out the base pattern for the legguards and started with the scales.

The scales were a bit annoying. I am using a strap end punch to template out each of the scales. However, it does take a bit of hammering with the mallet to really punch out the leather. I took to punching out as much as I could, then using an exacto knife to cut through the rest. I only managed to get half-way through one legguard of scales, before I had to break off from all the mallet pounding.

After I get all of it cut out, the middle of the scales will get 'ridged' so that they won't curl up in the middle.

I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Granny Square Kick

I appear to be on a Granny Square kick. I made this the other night in under an hour:

It's made out left over sock yarn. Initially, I was going to make the Sock Yarn Blankie Square (Ravelry Link), but I think I might "spice" it up with a few granny squares in between.

Red Tide: Abalone

This is my 3rd sweater of 2012. Well, technically, it's a sweater vest, but still a sweater, yes? It's the Abalone sweater on Ravelry. I had overdyed some Luscious Silk Singles from Blue Moon to a gorgeous burgandy color.

The sweater is lovely. I made it a little bit longer in length and a little bit wider in the bust.

The pattern was pretty darn easy, and I used the following links to help with the things I didn't know how to do.

• How to do a Cable Cast On
• Three Needle Bind Off & Applied iCord

And now, I'm love with applied icord and will be using it for a lot of other things.

Stained Glass

I went from this....

to this:

Pre-Wash: DK weight.

After Wash & Fulling: Worsted weight

It's about 222 yards at a worsted weight. It does remind me of stained glass. Now, the question is...what to make...

Finished Frankie

I FINALLY...FINALLY finished the NEVER ENDING SWEATER. (03/31/12) I am SOOO relieved to have finally finished this poor sweater with its trials & tribulations. I had to rip back the finished collar and reknit it to make it taller (as I wasn't too happy with the length -- and frankly, since I had already gone through the trouble of doing so much with it...what's a little bit more?!?

Here the buttons I found at the LA Garment District. They are quasi-Egyptian, and work well with the cardigan. I alternated the round & square buttons, because I thought it looked rather cute. They are resin buttons.

I had DH snap a photo of me in it, because...I was just so elated to finally fricking finish it!