Steeking with obligatory cat
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
I learned last night that a member of my knitting and spinning groups is losing her 12 year battle with breast cancer. Yesterday, her doctor told Gretchen and her family that there is nothing left that they can do and she should go into hospice care immediately. Gretchen was the person who encouraged me to take the learn to spin class and lent me one of her wheels to use. She has always been a caring and supportive person. She taught numerous classes at our LYS and always devoted time to help other people. Gretchen is only in her early 50s. It isn't right that someone so young has to go through this.
ETA: Gretchen passed away on Friday morning at home with her family. She will be sorely missed by all who knew her.
ETA: Gretchen passed away on Friday morning at home with her family. She will be sorely missed by all who knew her.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Olympics, day 10
I've gotten to the point on my Handspun Tangled Yoke Cardigan where I'm ready to start the cabled yoke!
I cannot believe this sweater has gone this fast. It's gone fast even with me taking a couple of nights off after finishing the main part of the body. I didn't want to strain my wrists or hands too much so I decided not knitting for a couple of nights was the best plan.
The sleeves gave me a little bit of trouble as you can tell from my last post. I knit on them for a number of days but they never seemed to grow past my elbows. Finally on Saturday, I made my way out of the black hole of knitting and started making progress on them. Yesterday, I reached my desired length (slightly longer than the pattern calls for) and was able to join them to the body. Dad and I went to a Civil War lecture and I was able to knit my way through it. As a side note, I didn't know that there was a Civil War prison complex on Lake Erie. The speaker told us about the archeological digs he has been doing there for the last 20 years and shared stories of some of the different prisoners. It was very interesting and had the added bonus of me being able to knit through it.
Last night, I knit a little bit too far and had to tink back a couple of rows. I'm at the point where I start decreasing and doing the set-up row for the cable section. A friend and I are planning to go shopping in Columbus this evening so I'm probably not going to make too much progress tonight. I'm hoping to at least start the cabled section. It should go pretty fast just because I love doing cables so much.
I cannot believe this sweater has gone this fast. It's gone fast even with me taking a couple of nights off after finishing the main part of the body. I didn't want to strain my wrists or hands too much so I decided not knitting for a couple of nights was the best plan.
The sleeves gave me a little bit of trouble as you can tell from my last post. I knit on them for a number of days but they never seemed to grow past my elbows. Finally on Saturday, I made my way out of the black hole of knitting and started making progress on them. Yesterday, I reached my desired length (slightly longer than the pattern calls for) and was able to join them to the body. Dad and I went to a Civil War lecture and I was able to knit my way through it. As a side note, I didn't know that there was a Civil War prison complex on Lake Erie. The speaker told us about the archeological digs he has been doing there for the last 20 years and shared stories of some of the different prisoners. It was very interesting and had the added bonus of me being able to knit through it.
Last night, I knit a little bit too far and had to tink back a couple of rows. I'm at the point where I start decreasing and doing the set-up row for the cable section. A friend and I are planning to go shopping in Columbus this evening so I'm probably not going to make too much progress tonight. I'm hoping to at least start the cabled section. It should go pretty fast just because I love doing cables so much.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Black hole
The sweater sleeves have entered the black hole of UGH. I've been knitting on them for the past couple of days but they haven't grown past my elbow. UGH is all that I have to say.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Olympics, day 4
Yay! Winter Olympics! Are you watching and enjoying the games? Going back to work after this long 3-day weekend is going to be hard because I will have to drag myself away from the tv (and the knitting).
My olympic knitting has been going EXTREMELY well. I mean, so well that it is freaky. On Friday, I cast on for the sleeves of my Handspun Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I completed almost an inch of them before I decided to start on the body of the cardigan. That was Saturday early afternoon and, by today at 4:30 pm, I've reached the point where you join the sleeves to the body! Wow. That's amazing. I think one thing that has helped it knit up so fast is that I decided to knit the cardigan in the round and steek it. For those of you who don't know, steeking is an extremely scary thing where you knit your garment with the intent to cut it open. It is just amazing how quickly this project is going. Now, that will probably jinx everything but I can hold out hope!
I'm off to work on the sleeves!
My olympic knitting has been going EXTREMELY well. I mean, so well that it is freaky. On Friday, I cast on for the sleeves of my Handspun Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I completed almost an inch of them before I decided to start on the body of the cardigan. That was Saturday early afternoon and, by today at 4:30 pm, I've reached the point where you join the sleeves to the body! Wow. That's amazing. I think one thing that has helped it knit up so fast is that I decided to knit the cardigan in the round and steek it. For those of you who don't know, steeking is an extremely scary thing where you knit your garment with the intent to cut it open. It is just amazing how quickly this project is going. Now, that will probably jinx everything but I can hold out hope!
I'm off to work on the sleeves!
Are you ready? attempt #2
** For some reason this didn't post on Friday. I'm trying another attempt so please excuse the time lapse! **
Tonight is the opening ceremony for the winter olympics! Are you ready? I always enjoy watching the winter olympics more than the summer ones (except for all of the horse events, I could watch those all day). All of the winter sports are things I really can't do so watching people who do them really, really well is just fascinating. And, while watching all of these athletes competing, I shall be knitting up a storm!
I should be all set to go this evening. A couple of days ago, I did a swatch trying different needle sizes. In case you are confused by the purl ridges in the picture, that is where I differentiated between the three different sizes. In order to tell the sizes apart, I purled 6 stitches for a US size 6, 5 for a US 5 and 4 for a US 4. I saw this technique somewhere a couple of years ago and have used it ever since. I tried keeping track on pieces of paper but always lost the paper and then couldn't remember what swatch was done with what yarn. Now the record is always kept with the swatch! For this project, I'm going to be using a US 5 to get gague.
I'm still debating about converting this sweater into the round and steeking it into a cardigan. I'll do another search of ravelry today to see if people have any suggestions. I could knit it as the directions are written but the thought of purling those long rows isn't really appealing. Sure, I could knit them backward but that takes me a long time, too. When I'm going for speed, knitting in the round is the way to go for me.
I can't wait to start! Are you participating in the Knitting Olympics or ravelympics?
Tonight is the opening ceremony for the winter olympics! Are you ready? I always enjoy watching the winter olympics more than the summer ones (except for all of the horse events, I could watch those all day). All of the winter sports are things I really can't do so watching people who do them really, really well is just fascinating. And, while watching all of these athletes competing, I shall be knitting up a storm!
I should be all set to go this evening. A couple of days ago, I did a swatch trying different needle sizes. In case you are confused by the purl ridges in the picture, that is where I differentiated between the three different sizes. In order to tell the sizes apart, I purled 6 stitches for a US size 6, 5 for a US 5 and 4 for a US 4. I saw this technique somewhere a couple of years ago and have used it ever since. I tried keeping track on pieces of paper but always lost the paper and then couldn't remember what swatch was done with what yarn. Now the record is always kept with the swatch! For this project, I'm going to be using a US 5 to get gague.
I'm still debating about converting this sweater into the round and steeking it into a cardigan. I'll do another search of ravelry today to see if people have any suggestions. I could knit it as the directions are written but the thought of purling those long rows isn't really appealing. Sure, I could knit them backward but that takes me a long time, too. When I'm going for speed, knitting in the round is the way to go for me.
I can't wait to start! Are you participating in the Knitting Olympics or ravelympics?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
