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Design and Redesign

In the midst of all my other projects, I have been playing around with an idea I have for a cardigan.  It started out with a swatch (swatch being a generous term as there are only 12 stitches and 8 rows) and I threw all caution to the wind and just sort of casted on.

The knitting went pretty quick, and soon I had about 5″ on the needles.  It was being worked from the top down with raglan shaping and I thought things were going perfectly.

Until I tried the thing on.  The back was huuge!  So, I placed all the stitches on a much longer circular needle and pinned it out to get an idea of what was happening.

Now, that’s generally the idea of how a top down raglan cardigan is supposed to look, if your stitch counts were right, and mine weren’t.

So I took new measurements from a raglan top-down sweater I had made before:

And calculated gauge from my new giant swatch (the sweater that was about to be majorly forgged!) and I cast on again.  With my new gauge (23 sts and 34 rows to 4″ over st st on size 3 US) I figured I’d have to cast on approximately 48 stitches for the back, 16 for each sleeve, and about 44 for each front (I had decided I wanted to switch from a v-neck to a crew neck) for a total of 168 sts…but when I saw the cast on I knew something was terribly wrong, so I scrapped the whole top-down idea and now I’m going to try knitting it bottom up.

I disregarded my earlier gauge and just cast on 152 sts (84 for the back and 34 for each front) and just wrapping the needles around my waist until it looked like the number of stitches was right.

I don’t know why this project is giving me so much trouble! Math is supposed to be easy right?  Oh well, I’ll keep trucking along on this thing and keep you posted on my redesign and redesign and redesign

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Super Sweet Blogger Award

I’m not sure what I’ve been doing to receive all this good karma, but I’ve been nominated by All Night Knits for the Super Sweet Blogger Award.  You should definitely check out her blog as she is Super Sweet as well!!

The rules of this award are simple: Nominate 12 other Super Sweet Blogs and answer 5 simple questions about yourself.  So here I go:

  1. Knit1Pearl1
  2. FranningtonKnits
  3. StitchCrazy
  4. Whatzitknitz
  5. SweatyKnitter
  6. KnittngAdventures555
  7. ShugaMama
  8. KnitThreeTogether
  9. NeotericWool
  10. KnitXpressions
  11. StitchNPurl
  12. KnittingBassist

The Questions:

  1. Cookies or Cake?  Cookies, no question!
  2. Chocolate or Vanilla?  Vanilla, it’s always sweet and refreshing
  3. Favorite sweet treat?  Tiramisu is my favorite dessert of all time
  4. When do you get hit with cravings?  I’m lucky that I don’t have a huge sweet tooth, but there are definitely moments after a long day at work that a piece of chocolate and glass of red wine can go a long way
  5. Sweet nickname?  I’ve never really been anything but babe by significant others, but my sister calls me monkey which I think is pretty cute.
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A Little Tease

Not much to blog about today, but the Muti Dress has dried and I am so so happy with how it turned out!  I see more baby dresses being knit in the future for Maddie.

At lunch I’m going to keep working on the second sleeve of my Tangled Yoke Cardigan which has about 5″ done so far.

And Jason has requested that his sweater be done in time for our trip to New York in mid June, so I’m going to try to knit as feverishly fast as possible.  The knitting is quick, but writing down what I’m doing so that I can turn it into an actual pattern later is what’s making it difficult.

I have a skeleton of a pattern written so far, and I’m anxious to get it out and have it test knitted so I can finalize it all and get it published to my Ravelry Store.

So far I just have some hat patterns sitting in there, and I’d love to include this as my first sweater pattern, fingers crossed :D

 

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A Long Road Ahead

I’ve noticed that it’s easier for me to stay focused on these longer term projects if I incorporate smaller projects in between.  I think that’s why finishing up my UFO’s has been so helpful, I only have about half a sweater to finish and I feel so accomplished when I bind off those last stitches.

Hopefully I can keep this trend up, my UFO list is fairly extensive:

1.  Laar Cardigan - I am almost to the point where I can start the waist pleating
2.  Chrysler Trellis Scarf – I’m about 6″ away from finishing the edging.  This is also my own design, and I need to finish the sample so I can start getting it test knit.
3.  Alcazar Scarf – The color of the Malabrigo Yarn Lace (Azul Bolita) is stunning…I’m about halfway done with the scarf
4.  Fisherman’s Daughter – Technically needs to be frogged and re-knit on larger needles and possibly one size up.
5.  Limeaide Cardigan – Another personal pattern that I hope to publish at some point.  I just need to do one sleeve cap, the second sleeve, and all the button band.
6.    Mohair Cardigan – Only have about 1/2 of one sleeve done
7.  Cardiff Coat – Just need about 6″ more of the body,  and the sleeves

 

 

8.  Debbie Bliss Capelet – I turned this into a cardigan, and the body is done, but I still need to work the sleeves
9.  Garden Party Cardigan – All done except for the sleeves
10.  Dressing Gown – All done except for the edging (which I might replace the lace edging with just a simple garter stitch trim (I only have about 3 balls of yarn left)
11.  Bear Claw Blanket – This is a long term project, but need to make an effort to actually finish the squares

These are going to keep me busy for awhile and I hope you all stick around to watch me finish these things!

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Working My Way Off the Needles

The Muti Dress is done and blocking!

I’m hoping to make a trip to JoAnn’s this week and pick up three cute little buttons for the back of this dress.  Then it’s being shipped of to Mom and hopefully photographed on the little girl!  I’ve been debating sewing some ribbon ties for a bow in the back, but I’m not sure if that’s really baby friendly.  Any advice?

I’m still working on my Tangled Yoke sleeves, but since I’m only knitting them on my lunch break at work, progress seems to be going pretty slowly.

And of course…still knitting Jason’s sweater.  On a bright note, I placed the back on top of the sweater he loves, and the sizing matches up perfectly!!  I was so amazed and so relieved at the same time.  Right now, I’ve planned for a simple set-in sleeve, but in case the shoulders are a little tight (I won’t be sure until he tries it on) I’m prepared to do a set-in sleeve/saddle shoulder hybrid.  But we’ll see about that later on.