Sunday, April 30, 2006

Who cares if it's perfect?

I finished that blasted capelet last night and it still looked like, well, as one person put it, "like it was just cut off the sheep. A purple sheep at that." Said person doesn't exactly understand what unblocked lace looks like, I think. Anyway, for all of you skeptics out there who claimed ignorance of any such lace pattern, here you go:





SEE? LACE!

Also, I know it's not perfectly symmetrical. I'm too lazy to go back and shift all the pins and felt that the slight imperfection will give it character. Because, you know, a bright purple fuzzy capelet is utterly devoid of personality until it's blocked into a slightly lopsided shape.

Friday, April 28, 2006

Gauge Check?

I am awful about doing gauge swatches. I tend to just dive right in with a yarn that seems close enough to that recommended and hope for the best. This usually works out, thanks to lots of mid-knit fittings and the forgiving tendencies of knit fabric, but occasionally I start knitting and reach a point at which I want to beat myself over the head with my oversized monstrosity of a Spiderweb Capelet. Seriously, I think this needs a picture.



Click it. You won't understand how ridiculously long it is until you notice how long my worktable is and the fact that the fluff will not fit onto it without dangling over the edges. You see that smaller fluff on the spoon handles over there?



That is fluff 2.0. It is about half as long as the original fluff. Specifically, 52 sts to the original version's 92. Of course, it didn't occur to me until I was almost done with the capelet and noticed that I was about to run out of yarn that this thing was perhaps a bit too long. You'd think running out of room on the needles would have given it away first, wouldn't you? Damn, I should have taken a picture of that.



Just in case you were skeptical about the existence of any sort of lace pattern in all that fluff, well, you can sort of see it there. In the large version. Okay, well, you can see YOs and YOs indicate lace, right? >_<


I think I just about used an entire year's worth of "fluff"s in this post. Remind me to never use that word again after this thing is done.

I am a project whore

I'm more than halfway done with one sleeve for the Lace&Ruffle Cardigan and I suddenly had the urge to start a new project. Something was drawing me towards the bag of fluff in my stash. The bag of fluff, otherwise known as Joann Sensations Angel Hair, that I purchased only for its softness and sale price, and with a vague notion of a sweater of some sort. I realized later that the yarn is much too thick to be even remotely flattering on me in sweater form, but that I definitely wanted it to become something that would spend much time against my skin. Seriously, this stuff is obscenely soft and fluffy. I looked around for a bit, fondled the yarn, swatched the yarn, fondled the swatch, started a thread on craftster to milk project ideas from other people, and eventually managed to google my way into the blog of someone who had used the fluff to knit up the Spiderweb Capelet from SnBN.

It was obviously fate that that very same capelet was in my to-knit folder, so I promptly grabbed the closest to size 15 needles I own (they're actually a size 17 16" bamboo circular) and dove in. For the record, I hate these needles. They are like sharpened spoon handles and my tendons absolutely hate manouvering them, especially in and around ridiculously slippery yarn, so I go slowly. Very, very slowly and with many breaks to work on the cardigan. Despite my slowness I think I've already done close to half of the capelet, although it's hard to tell with all the fluff.

Monday, April 24, 2006

I did warn you about the neglect

But holy hell, I had no idea it had been almost 2 months since my last entry! Damnit, why don't people point this sort of thing out to me?!

It's okay, I understand. Nobody actually reads this blog anyway. ^_^

~

Just in case they do, however, it's time for an update.

When last we spoke, I had finished up Butterfly No. 2 and was working on some other things. Since then I've continued to work on said things but have also finished two more items, neither of which are for me. First we have the Petit Chou lingerie from the sexy issue of Knitty, made for a swap. For someone with a bra size identical to mine. For the record, the Petit Chou bralette thing is designed to accomodate up to a C cup. This is not terribly helpful when the person you are knitting it for is a 36D. At least I got to make the knickers without any modification.



Yes, I know it looks awful just laying there on the table. I blame the elastic. Since I hate lousy unmodeled pictures of my FOs I just had to take a slightly better one.



If you never wanted to see me wearing lingerie, well, don't click that. Also, shut up, this never happened.


MOVING ON.

My second most recent FO is yet another Butterfly.



Mods for this one include more beads and a double-stranded tonal frill, picot edging, and straps.





Yes, I know. I'm very pale and do not look great in orange. Good thing this one's not for me either, yes? When it gets to where it's going and I have been sent pictures of it on its recipient I shall post those and tell you a bit more, but until then it's a secret. SHHHH.


In other project news:







That was, in order,

-I have finished the back, fronts, and part of a sleeve of the Lace&Ruffle Cardigan.
-I have finished the back and front of the Colchique sweater and am stalling because I don't want to have to figure out how to convert the sleeves to be knit from the shoulder down because I know that I'm going to run out of yarn but want to use up as much of it as I can.
-I am halfway done with the Pomatomus socks, which I love, but have run out of yarn and thanks to my yarn ban cannot go get more for them until I have destashed enough.


I think I need to start a new project.