I finally got to the dropped-stitch section!! It's such fun, and yet there's a certain amount of trepidation with which I drop that all-important stitch. Did I remember to knit the right stitches twisted? Will the stitches all drop nicely, or will all my hard work unravel horribly? So far, so good. I'm knitting Clappy in some beautiful, incredibly soft merino worsted from Handpaintedyarn.com - it's sort of variegated, but really it's more just tonal variation. I love it to pieces.
Okay, this picture is half-terrible. The color is really a much richer, deeper, darker green - picture a pine forest from a distance - but you can still get a relatively good feel for the variation in tone. Anyway, I love this pattern, even if purling a hundred-odd stitches does get ever so slightly tedious after a while, especially since I can't purl the fast way. (When I first learned to knit, I knit combined, although I didn't realize that for a long time, and so I usually purl combined - so much faster!)
While we're at it, I took some pictures of my finished Wavy! Okay, so I haven't woven in the ends yet - it's my least favorite part and sometimes I need to let things settle for a bit before I do that. I swear, soon.
I love the way it turned out in the Manos - I used two full skeins (bought a year apart, no less!! You can't tell, though) and got a scarf just about as tall as I am (5' 2"). I'm very pleased with it. It was a fun pattern to knit, although I will say you really do have to pay attention - I was working on it the day I taught a friend to knit, and when I got home I realized I'd swapped the pattern around somehow and had started "wave"ing back in the other direction. Not exactly mindless knitting.
This weekend, I've got a loooooong weekend, so I'm hoping to make some more progress on Clappy and maybe even cast on for the first mitten. If I end up being less ambitious, I'll work on my flame hat that I'm re-knitting, or maybe start Dad's hat again. Sheesh, I've got a lot to do!! Better get to bed - I'll need to rest up if I'm going to get a lot of knitting done this weekend.
In advance of making my first real Latvian mitten, I decided that a gauge swatch was in order, especially since this book is somewhat loose with the gauge and specific pattern directions - it's really just charts that you have to figure out how to expand and apply yourself. Also, I haven't done any fair isle in a while, so I needed to refresh myself on how to do the floats, etc. I did it in the round, though, so that my gauge, hopefully, would be accurate.
You know Knitty's nosewarmers? Well, I appear to have made the accompanying finger warmer. Perfect for that most-used finger!
You know Knitty's nosewarmers? Well, I appear to have made the accompanying finger warmer. Perfect for that most-used finger!
Adorable, innit? Twenty-seven stitches turns out to be the perfect size for my middle finger!! I love it. It's sitting on my desk, just in case anyone pisses me off tonight. Hehe - my friend Nisha and I also decided that I should make three more and give them to a Chihuahua as legwarmers. I can't get that mental image out of my head! I'm snickering even now! It would be cute ... (good thing I don't know any Chihuahuas).
Here's a slightly closer view of the pattern.
It looks pretty nice in the blue and cream. I need to tighten up my gauge, though - anyone have any suggetions? I'm knitting on size 2 double-pointeds and I find that some of the stitches (particularly the last stitch of a given section of color) tends to get a little elongated when I knit it on the next round. I'm doing okay with the floats, though, and had surprisingly few problems with laddering. Plus, you can't see it very well, but the two-color cast-on is really cool - I love the look of it. I might just cast on these mittens this weekend!!
By the way, if you all don't already know about the Harlot's amazingly successful fundraising drive for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), check it out. It's an incredibly worthy cause.
No comments:
Post a Comment