Monday, November 28, 2005

post Thanksgiving knitting update

No, I didn't die. Yes, I did make the leg warmers longer. I need to collar the DH and get a picture of me in them for the blog. They look more like leg warmers now, even if the yarn is funky. Man, it is funky.

It's been a Christmas knitting extravaganza around here, with a good rate of small project completion.

Other things I need to post pictures of:
Mary's purple socks.
Haz in her Kitty Hat. (I have some parts pictures, but she's customized it since then.)
The pre and post pics of Kit's Dice Bag and the Felted Nantasket basket.

I took the plunge over the weekend and started the red and black Wool of the Andes Ribbi Cardi for my mom. I started with the sleeves because they always seem to take the longest. I'm doing them both at the same time on my spanking new Addi Nature 24" size 4, which seems to work well. I love Addi Naturas.

However, it is important to THINK about what you are doing when designing things. Like 'I need to have 11 decrease rows over 18.5 inches, and my row gauge is 6/inch.' There's a BIG difference between 'increase every 10 rows' and 'increase every 10 RIGHT SIDE rows', and it's the second I did for ten inches when I should have been doing the first. (I knew there was a reason the little voice in my head wasn't happy with how the sleeves were looking.) I ripped back to where the first increase should be and now things seem to be going well. I will admit that I love how dense and squishy the 2x2 ribbing is coming out... it's making a lovely fabric. I'm thinking my Mom will love it. I'm going to need a in-progress photo.

Hopefully, the sleevage will be the biggest issue of the sweater. When I was working on Haz's kitty hat, I had a gauge issue that made the hat way way too big, and I tried to conquer it by changing needle sizes but decided that I hated the drape, so I just adjusted for my gauge of a plushy 4 sts/inch rather than tight 4.5 sts/inch, ripped out the whole thing and re-cast on, and didn't look back. That was the last problem with that hat, so maybe the sacrifice of ripped back sleeve inches will appease the foul-up fairy again. I hope. I've made the Ribbi Cardi pieces before and it turned out a little small, so I think the lessons learned the first time will show me something about this time. At least I'm making it in wool, not cotton, so I'm not trying to account for shrink on raglan sleeves.

After seeing Haz' hat, (which she got early, as her birthday is Dec 15th and she wanted to sew eyes on it, and I thought she'd rather do that over Thanksgiving than during her finals) her BF asked me for one. Does everyone else notice how the knitting list just seems to keep growing? At least I know I can crank out kitty hats quickly. :)

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