Tag Archives: knitting

inspiration inventory

Inventory of Current Projects and Ruffle Skirt

March 23, 2012 – 11:24 am

I think I need to start using this place as a way to track inspiration for projects. I spend so much time scouring Ravelry, looking for the perfect pattern for yarn I have in my stash, or things I really want to knit, it makes no sense unless I have a sort of “notebook” in which to record my finds, that I can come back to and consult with before proceeding with a new pattern.

First, a quick inventory of current projects:

  • A pair of Spatz I began when I first started knitting, and failed miserably on. They have been hibernating ever since, but it’s some of the first yarn I bought, and I’d love to be able to finish them through properly sometime soon.
  • A Rebecca tank for which I’m attempting to read a damn chart, and which is impossible (practically) to understand, and which I am modifying heavily to make it more… well… sexy. Hibernating since last summer, when I realised I had read the chart wrong and was screwing up a bunch of stuff, and I now have to sit down with a very clear head and absolutely nothing else on my plate in order to figure out exactly what went wrong, where, and how to go back without screwing the whole thing up and having to start over. Oooh, the self-induced stress. :P
  • A ridiculously illogical asymmetrical Beaded Ties Shawl, which looked amazing on the pattern page – just need to make up the beaded ties, and photo shoot it – and it shall be ready to wear! (I don’t wear shawls. Unless I’m in Thailand, where it’s boiling outside and freezing indoors with the A/C :P ).
  • An Ume Shrug for which I need to do a quick photo shoot. Completed this a month or two ago – was a quick knit. Oh, how I love those bulky yarns… for their speed, not their look. Not sure if I like this much – but I’ll save that for the entry about it, once the photo shoot is done.
  • My Gretel Tank, which I also finished months ago, and needs a proper photo shoot / debrief post.
  • A while back, I started a Goth Girl Sweater, but for some reason when I split the yarn to begin the sleeves, they begin to be knit inside-out. It makes absolutely zero sense, I’ve tried splitting it off in a multitude of ways / orientations etc, and nothing works. I have no idea why it’s so impossible for me. WTH am I doing wrong? I must be retarded.
  • A Bronwyn Capelet, because I couldn’t figure out what else to do with that particular yarn, I wanted something I could easily zone out on during class, and I wanted something with a bit of lace. And hell, capes are awesome. Need to finish this one… although it’s probably too warm to even think of wearing woolly capes now.
  • The Lacey Accent Scarf I began two years ago and couldn’t complete, because my brain wasn’t big enough to handle all the changes in lace. I’ve since learned to vigilantly use a row counter and consult the pattern until it’s absolutely 100% memorised, so it’s going better now. Except it took me a week to do 75 rows, and my goal is 450, so I can imagine that a) I shall become quite bored with this pattern quickly (already happened actually), and b) therefore, it will take more than 5 more weeks to complete the last 375 rows, due to procrastination and school work.

Okay, with that out of the way, I’d like to mention something I saw today that I thought was brilliant. I keep seeing shops trying to sell their ruffle yarns, which I’ve found utterly gaudy and cheesey up until now. Mainly because, as scarves, they just look tacky, and with so many people wearing them, and seeing them in so many knit shop windows, I dunno… I just don’t really care for them. As appealing as the yarn itself looks in a skein… as a scarf, it’s just… meh.

But today, I came across a Portuguese site that displays the yarn done up as a skirt – which I thought was quite interesting. While I don’t love pencil skirts, I do enjoy the look of this.

A quick Rav search came up with a couple of adorable children’s patterns using these yarns in a similar way, so I think I’ll be able to adapt one of those patterns… they’re cuter than the one pictured here, shorter, more… I don’t know what the word is. Just the shape I prefer for skirts.

Now, I’m tasked with finding the perfect ruffle yarn to make one of these… colour, weight, brand… hmm.

Tags , , , , | Permalink | Comment (0)
knitting

First FO of 2012: Slouchy Beehive Beret!

January 1, 2012 – 3:04 pm

The Hat

The Hat

I’d been watching the pixiebell Etsy shop for a while, as I love the hats posted there. Eventually, there was a sale, so I picked up 3 patterns to knit for myself (and possibly others). Well, this week in Quebec city, it was so cold I determined to knit myself a nice, bulky warm hat – and so, when we trekked all the way out to the only knitting shop I could find anywhere near the city (La Dauphine*), I pulled up the The Original and Oversized Beehive Beret Hat pattern on my iPod and snagged myself some of the Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick the pattern called for.

Slouchy Beehive Beret

Slouchy Beehive Beret

It took me a total of 5 days of scattered knitting to complete it, and I think it’s a success. Lovely, warm, fits perfectly, didn’t even need to knit a gauge swatch, and the colour is wonderful too. The only downside is that the wool is rather low-quality (La Dauphine didn’t have any other yarn that was as bulky as the pattern called for), and while it knit up fast, it’s already beginning to felt – I haven’t even washed it yet. I think I’ll pick up a nicer bulky yarn at some point in the future and make another, in a different colour. But for now, this will do just fine.

Check out the project page on Ravelry.

Edit January 3, 2012: Just wanted to elaborate on the shopping experience at La Dauphine in Quebec City. I forgot to snap a photo of the outside, but you can see one on their Google Maps page. The store is fairly small, which was a bit disappointing considering how long it took us to talk there from Vieux Quebec, but the selection is pretty wide, with a lot of beautiful sock and fine yarns. They also had some other crafting stuff available, including tatting, embroidery and crochet threads, and embroidery templates. I was quite happy to come across the tatting threads, as they had some colours I haven’t come across anywhere else (like the deep teal and cherry pinks I love so much). They also had leave-in delicate clothing rinse Eucalan, which I’ve been looking for after a workshop in October describing how to take care of fine materials. I would definitely recommend getting one of the many buses that pass along Chemin Sainte Foy in order to get there. For more crafting goodness, there’s also an adorable little pottery painting shop/cafe a mere two-minute walk from La Dauphine: le Céramic Café-Studio. Check it out!

Tags , , , , | Permalink | Comment (1)
knitting

Flores Dandy Scarf

June 28, 2011 – 5:24 am
Michael Vinogradov liked this post

Wearing my Dandy Scarf

Wearing my Dandy Scarf

So, after lamenting how long it takes to begin a new project, I finally came across what I figured would be the perfect pattern for the yarn featured in my previous post, Lang Yarns Flores in purple.

I had picked up 2 skeins on sale at Casa Lana, in Cologne (Cologne yarn shops post to come!), and I wanted to make a decorative neck piece for it. So I scoured the Ravelry database until I came across the Dandy Scarf pattern, by Alexandra Tinsley.

I noted that it’s easily customisable and figured I’d have enough yarn to bang this out pretty quickly. Considering my recent failure with the Gisela pattern (another post to come), I wanted something to help boost my confidence back up. The Greek wrap definitely helped with that, but I needed more than just one successful project to motivate me to the point where I could pick up Gisela again and fix my mistakes on it.

I quickly bought the pattern, and Alexandra was very timely in emailing it to me after my purchase through Etsy (you can sometimes wait quite a bit of time to hear from sellers on there). I began the scarf, and after only one small hitch (a few edge stitches fell off my needle one evening), I was able to backtrack only 10 rows and pick up from there to finish up – yesterday! I did have to return to Cologne to buy another skein of the yarn, as I didn’t follow the instructions and begin the second half when I ran out of the first ball – and I wanted to include tassles anyway, which I wouldn’t have had enough for even if I had followed those instructions.

Dandy Scarf in Flores

Dandy Scarf in Flores

I have yet to block, as I need a considerable area to lay the scarf flat and possibly iron it, or at the very least pin it out when it’s wet, and I don’t have any tools to do that here. It’s too heavy to wear in Greece, or even here in Bonn as there seems to be a pocket of tropical weather visiting us this week (we’re uncertain how long it will last – usually it’s only a couple of days at a time, followed by 2-3 weeks of chilly, rainy weather), so I’m not missing out on any wearing opportunities. And best of all, I have some of the yarn left, so if my tassles ever destroy themselves, I can make more – or consider making some other type of hanging decoration. All in all, I’m quite pleased with the results of this one.

You can check out my Dandy Scarf on Ravelry.

Tags , , , , | Permalink | Comment (0)
knitting travel

Light wrap for Greek Evenings

June 20, 2011 – 5:21 am

My Ventura Wrap for Greece

My Ventura Wrap for Greece

Late last week, I decided I would begin knitting with two of the skeins of yarn I bought in Berlin, one light turquoise and one black Linie Toledo. I had planned to knit a light, lace wrap for our upcoming trip to Greece, and so I set about spending hours scouring the interwebs for an appropriate pattern.

I finally came across the Ventura Wrap and decided this was the one for me. Quick, simple, requiring little memorisation and using the same weight of yarn as Linie Toledo, I was satisfied.

I had originally planned on knitting the edges (ie: a vertical stripe on either side of the top and bottom – not the two ends) in black,

Front View of the Wrap

Front View of the Wrap

but I couldn’t quite figure out from these instructions how to knit together two such large strands of very differently coloured yarn in a wide open lace pattern as I was doing here, so I gave up and knitted the two ends black instead. It’s not quite as elegant as the visions I’d originally had dancing in my head of my completed product, and I still ended up having to re-start it, and large chunks of it, a frustrating number of times – but considering my skill level and the fact that it took only about a week to complete, I’m more than satisfied with it.

You can view my project’s details on Ravelry.

Tags , , , , | Permalink | Comments (2)
knitting

Tina’s Coachella: a debrief

May 19, 2011 – 5:34 am

Tina's Coachella - FrontRight before I left Canada, I wrapped up the knitting on my Coachella project. While I was at first quite pleased with myself for having finished my third project, and a top at that, looking at it now, after blocking, I’m not satisfied with it.

The positives:
I quite like the colours I chose. I think they work well together and create some interest. I also really enjoyed working with this yarn (once I figured out how to), and I like the way the yarn feels on my skin, and the visual texture it creates once knitted up.

Now, the negatives:
There are a number of problems with the way it turned out that, while individually are quite small, added up together have left me feeling that this particular project was not the success I had at first envisioned.

My first mistake was to knit the project in size Small, instead of X-Small, which was my original plan. For some reason, over the year between when I began the project, and then re-started the project, I had forgotten this. I also gained a bit of weight and figured a size Small would fit better in the end and in the ensuing years… however, I was wrong. Due to my minimal bust, I firmly believe an X-Small would have been more than enough. Even with my maximal bust-enhancing bra, the top sags too much in the centre (truly, outside of this application, these bras are a godsend for the bustly-challenged – they allow you to impress the most critical people: those who care the most about size, and will never see you naked).

Tina's Coachella - BackAs a result of this inaccurate sizing, the area around the busy sags too much. It’s not so much a cowl-neck as it is a saggy-underbust top. Which is not sexy.

I think I also knit the back much too tight. While I was nervous with the knitting in the beginning, so I knit a bit too loosely, I ended up gaining confidence by the time I got to the back, and therefore my stitches are tighter there. This means that now the top bit that’s supposed to roll down, only does so in the front – and in the back I have to draw it tight so it covers my neck, and more importantly, the bit of my bra that crosses so that it can be invisible.

I also bound-off much too tightly. This is not something I had considered and will have to be more careful of in future. It’s easy to cast-on with a reasonable tautness, I find, but my bind-offs are always three times tighter. I’m not sure why.

Finally, I had to add some short-rows to the back to make it the same length as the front. Again, due to having knit this the size up instead of X-Small, I ran out of turquoise yarn too quickly, which meant the bottom, which was supposed to only have a few rows of the plum yarn, has more plum in the back than in the front. Which looks awkward.

So, all in all, I’m proud of having finished this project – yes. But I’m not at all satisfied with it, and I’m debating knitting another one (with new yarn) to see if I can do it better next time. I’m not entirely sure what to do with this one. It’s not horrible, it’s wearable (at least at home on laundry day)… just my inner perfectionist is shouting at me to keep it in the closet and to wear something better tailored to my form. I don’t know, though. I’m going to wear it today, see whether or not people stare in horror at me, then I’ll decide what to do with it.

Tags , , | Permalink | Comment (0)