Funky Mitts September 22, 2008

I’ve got this gorgeous green wool yarn from KnitPicks that I have been waiting to use on some mittens.  Since I had bought pretty blue yarn for the Vogue mittens, I wanted to do something different with the green yarn.  Originally I was going to use the Flirtation cable pattern from Vogue Knitting online, but I wanted something …..more.  Finally I decided to mix the Retwisted Taffy & small 2 cable patterns from Lion Brand Yarn on my mittens.  I’ve been referring to a variety of basic mitten patterns to get mine going.  So far it’s been gong good and the pattern is really turning out.  If anybody ever wants to knit it, they would have to use bigger needles.  I cast on to my size 3 needles and the mitten is fitting pretty snug on my hand  But we will see!

I think I found a new use for my acrylic yarn July 24, 2008

My cousin’s 2nd birthday is next month.  I’m sending a small care package for both of my little cousins with knitted fun stuffs.  First the pink socks for my cousin Fiona and now I’m putting together green cable socks for my cousin Carter.  I originally thought that the acrylic yarn might not be soft enough for socks.  But after knitting the first sock, it doesn’t seem so bad.  Plus a little washing will (hopefully) soften it up a bit.

I’m using this pattern from Lion Brand Yarn.  The only thing I would change about it the next time I knit them, is to put cables on both sides of the sock.  Having knit the first sock, I don’t know how much I like it being alone.  Then again, if you think about it, you’ll probably only see the side with the cable on it.  Hmm.  On the plus side, my toe looks a lot better.  With the pink socks, the toes ended up really super pointy.  These green socks turned out flatter.

This is also my first project with my new wooden needles.  I feel that the wood needles were more comfortable while knitting with the acrylic yarn.  When I was knitting my doll my hands cramped up quite often when knitting with the metal needles.  I’m not sure if it’s just me, but there were a few times where I was nervous I would snap the needles in half.  Mostly this was noticeable during the first few rows and then whenever I was doing decreases (like the k2tog).  Luckily there have been no mishaps.

So we are going camping this weekend and while I’m not sure how much knitting I’ll be able to do (other than on the drive there and back), I for sure will try to crank out more socks from what I have left of acrylic yarn (the pretty light grass green and a bright blue).  My bigger projects haven’t really been put on hold, but I can pretty much guarantee that I won’t work on them ’til next week when my knitting pal comes back.  They’re really items that need a few hours of intense concentration.  Plus I’ll be submitting these socks into the Summer KAL/CAL!

On a sidenote, I’m really sad that I wasn’t able to peruse more at Prairie Yarn this past weekend.  😦  There were a lot of beautiful yarns that I just wanted to touch and sift through.  But hopefully I’ll be able to order some more yarn from KnitPicks plus a circular needle.  My friend has been using her circular needles and loves them.

I am so peeved June 17, 2008

I started working on something finally.  It’s taken me a week or two to knit through some swatches (of which only 1 survived) and I discovered one that works well and looks cool.  I was using US 8 needles and a baby blue colored yarn to knit this pattern and I intended to make it a blanket.  On Saturday I casted on 120 stitches and went to work.  By tonight I had completed the first 16 rows (it took me forever because I pretended I was 21 again over the weekend and didn’t do much else besides eat a lot and tend to a hangover) and managed to take a few pictures to prove my triumph.  Good thing I did that because as I worked the next 3 rows, I notice that somehow things had gotten flip flopped.  Instead of my stitches continuing in the same pattern, they were now reversed.

This happened to me time and time again as I knitted the brown purse for a girlfriend.  So I’m not really surprised, just really annoyed.  But I knew that I could carefully rip out my stitches and save my project.  Carefully I pulled out 3 rows and began to slip my needle through the orphaned stitches.  12 stitches in I completely botched it and lost countless stitches that I am honestly in no mood to hunt for.

I do intend to try again.  Except this next time I will use smaller needles and try very hard to keep my tension the same.  This happens to me with cable knit, that each row of cables is uniquely different and you can’t always see the pattern as clearly.  I’m hoping that using smaller needles will help.

I know, looks nothing like the picture from Lion Brand Yarn, right?  *sigh*  Some days I really want to give up knitting because I feel like I’m absolutely no good at it.  But then that feisty part of me that refuses to be dragged down and declared a failure (by myself) jumps right back up again and ferociously attacks a new project with my pointy sticks.  Still doesn’t change the fact that half the time my creations look nothing like the picture, but I always just feel relieved I finished something that doesn’t look like a cat barfed it up.