Swatch Madness and the case of the missing swatchlette

It’s happened. I’ve finally succumbed to the insanity that is swatching. Why is swatching insane, you ask? Because it involves expecting the swatch to tell you the truth and that the finished project will be faithful to the gauge measure on the swatch. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly had projects that were dead on with the swatch gauge. Usually those were small projects like gloves, and less likely to be sweaters. If you took all of the projects made without a swatch, and all of the projects made with a swatch and compared them based on accuracy with the pattern, fit, frustrations endured, or happiness of the knitter with the final project I honestly don’t think that there would be any statistical significance. But this time my knitting angel has won out over my lazy knitting devil and I’ve swatched. Multiple times for multiple projects.

The pink is for my editing of the Starburst pattern, and the purple is for a new pattern, which I haven’t decided if I want to share it before it’s completed, written, tested and edited. But we’ll see how patient I am. The missing swatchlette, which was a herringbone stitch done in the round for a pair of fingerless gloves, is missing. It was on the table when I went to bed and the next morning? Gone. Disappeared. I looked under the couch, under the bed, behind the tv. Nothing. I’m seriously hoping that I walk in to the apartment tonight to find the cats playing with it. I really just want my swatch back. I’ll forgive the cats for stealing it, really, I will. Just bring it back to me.

This weekend was very productive pattern-wise. Not only did I swatch, but I took pictures for Rose’s mitts and the Katherine hat. Also, I’m about two steps away from buying Stitch Mastery. I played around with the demo and emailed Cathy about her policy on switching computers. The demo was easy to work with, and I was even able to create my own stitch (which I need for Katherine) and I got such a speedy reply from Cathy that I nearly had whiplash.

I do believe I’ve cured my knitting ennui.

Happy knitting!

For the love of Knitting

Well despite this being a rather unproductive weekend grad school application wise, I feel like I’ve gotten a bit of knitting related things done. I finished and sent the custom red and grey gloves, but forgot to take a picture. I figured out what was wrong with Paypal and I’ve started on the other pair of custom fingerless gloves. But while I was doing this I started thinking that maybe I should’t be knitting stuff for Etsy during knit nights. Knit nights should be devoted to knitting that I want to do, either working on pattern, or socks for Ty or whatever. Because I realized that I hadn’t worked on anything fun for over a week, but I had been knitting like crazy. So that’s my plan from now on: my knitting only on knit night, and whenever else I feel like it, Etsy knitting is confined to other times in my life, like on the metro, or at home watching tv. That way my personal knitting doesn’t get neglected, it’s the reason that I knit in the first place, to have fun!

I also tried convincing myself to just buy all the yarn I would need to re-vamp all of my patterns. That did’t work so well. But I think I finally decided that the zip-hoodie will be done in Berocco Comfort, it seems like the perfect yarn for a hoodie – durable, washable and soft.

For now I’ll continue fixing Working Diamonds. Next up on my list is probably Peacock Feathers and Rose’s Gloves. And maybe at some point I get a few test knitters for Katherine. Kind of like maybe I’ll write my personal statement for my school applications.

Happy Knitting! And don’t let yourself get stuck with un-fun knitting, especially for the holidays!

Things Finished and Things Starting

My GRE is done and over with and it feels great! Except for that little nagging voice in the back of my mind that’s saying “time for applications now!” But I think before I get too stressed over something else I’ll be focusing just a bit more on my knitting to-do list. I really need to get the Katherine pattern to the test knitters group, and I need to hurry up on the cold weather stuff for Ty, it’s not frigid out, but it’s getting chilly in the mornings. I finished one of his Jaywalker socks last night, and I queued up Skew for his other Ty-Dy yarn.

I was pretty accomplished the other day and took a whole bunch of pictures of my yarn stash and updated ravelry. There’s still a lot that’s not on there, mostly things with no tags anymore, which probably need to be on ravelry even more. But it’s a start, and if I try to update each time I buy I won’t be sitting on the metro or at work wondering what yarn I can use for something, I can look it up on my phone!

The next week or so is going to be very yarn-ful. I ordered a whole bunch from KnitPicks, mostly to revisit some patterns, Working Diamonds and Starburst in particular. But also some autumn colored Palette, because I’m greatly missing the New England leaves turning. More yarniness will be this weekend, Looped is having their 1st birthday! Therefore they have a 20% sale, which would be just silly to pass up. And on top of that, though not able to be combined, is my 15% off coupon for Looped, which I might just have to use for my birthday next Wednesday. All in all, more yarn = awesomeness. I was just saying to Ty the other night that we could put all the yarn on the bed and roll in it and cuddle it, ahhh…

And on a slightly less insane note, I finished my sweater dress! It’s all washed and ready to be worn, looks super comfy and warm. Hopefully the weather will cooperate tomorrow and do what it says it will do for once – high of 66! Then I’ll have some pretty pictures of it. I’m already dreaming up more variations on it, with a different center cable, simpler back and better fitted arms. With KnitPicks cotton yarn, it cost less than $30!

FO and yarn haul pics to come.

Happy knitting!

Who knew?

My sweater dress is coming along very nicely. I had decided that I was going to try raglan sleeves, and I’m nearly at the point where I can join the body and sleeves together. Because I have been, as always, designing as I go, I decided to work the sleeves simultaneously with the Magic Loop method. And lo and behold, it’s great! It might be a bit nicer with a longer circular, but it’s actually quite easy. And I have to say, being able to finish both sleeves at the same time seems ideal (unless, of course, I screw something up with the design and have to frog both back). I’m still not sure what I want for the neck, I’m stuck between a nice big comfy cowl neck, or a more slim-lined boat neck. Although the more I knit the more I realize how quickly I’m running out of yarn… So it might end up as a boat neck out of necessity. I am very excited for the finished product, although it’s still a few weeks/months away from being sweater dress weather. In the meantime though I can type up the pattern and perhaps submit it to KnitPicks IDP program, seeing as it’s knit out of KnitPicks cotton yarn. Which, by the was is super soft and smooshy, especially after running it through the washer and dryer, I used it for Rosy’s sweater too.

My Etsy shop is hobbling along, views dropped a bit when I stopped adding new items, which was expected. I’m still not sure what I can do to get sales, but I’ve talked to Ty a bit about creating a twitter account for the shop and maybe draw some people in that way. Social media marketing is definitely more of Ty’s thing than mine though.

The Gabriella test knit is pretty much finished. There are only a few details I’d like to fix in the pattern, getting rid of any needle number references, is one of the big ones. I’ve been realizing while doing the sleeves with the magic loop method that tons of knitters have to do socks this way, no second sock syndrome to worry about! And I’m sure that people use it for gloves and mittens too, so to have any reference to what number needle you should be on seems overly confusing. My plan is to switch it to say ‘beginning of back of hand and palm side’ etc, that way there’s no confusion, hopefully. Once the patterns completely finished, with some better pictures too I think, I’ll post it here and link it on Ravelry. Then I’ll have my test knitters link their FOs to it and poof, insta-pattern-awesomeness. And maybe some new people using it too, that’d be nice.

sleeping during the hurricane, and cuddling my sweater/protecting it from the cats

Aaand, the hat, which I might be naming Katherine (with K, not a C, it’s much more alluring)*, is finished and blocked and beautiful! Really, I’m quite surprised that it turned out so well, it even seemed like it needed a bit of expanding during blocking, and I might block it again and actually stretch it a bit while it dries, just so it’s a little more slouchy. I still need to do a proper swatch, my first one was pretty good, but not enough rows, which is really the most important part for this hat, seeing as the band is knit sideways. I still need to take pictures of it, but I’ll start formatting the pattern soon so I can start it’s test knit soon too.

All in all I feel good about my progress, both with designing and with Etsy. I feel like I’m really putting effort in, and I think for now, that’s what counts.

Happy knitting!

*brownie points to anyone who gets my reference (really brownies if you’re local!)

Onwards and Upwards

Hmm, not to tell you all how awesome I am, because of course you already know, but that post title seems to sum up what I wanted to mention a little better than I had intended. I’m moving onwards right now by choosing another pattern to clean up and have test knit, and I’m moving upwards cause it’s a hat! Get it? I moved from gloves to a hat? I amuse myself a little to easily I think. On the plus side though my hat is too pretty to worry about how easily I get amused.

The hat is the yellow slouchy hat that I made in February. Or rather, the hat I made, then blocked and ruined, then re-made with a way better pattern. It’s quite a simple design, especially for me. Not to say that it doesn’t have lots of things I love, like cables and yarn overs, but there isn’t really anything confusing about it. And if I want to make it even more knitter friendly I’ll do what I’ve been thinking about and make the band a simple ribbed thing, with a normal cast on, instead of the separate sideways tube band I did for mine. Or maybe I’ll be super cool and put both on my pattern, let the knitters decide what they want to do.

One of my bigger questions is what to knit it with. I’m hesitant to make it with the same yarn that I used, because of the minor blocking catastrophe. But the yarn that I used is gorgeous, and I don’t really have any other DK at home to use. And of course the two skeins of Malabrigo silky merino that I do have are two slightly different blues, and I’m not sure I want to add color change into the already busy hat. So that leaves me with either buying new yarn, or using sock yarn. Right now I’m leaning toward using the sock yarn, it involves less effort and doesn’t make me feel guilty.

I’m holding off on buying any yarn right now, after that last Looped trip I’d feel a little bad. Particularly because most of the yarn is still sitting there unknit, like the majority of yarn I buy. But it’s a weird conundrum, pointed out by my hat that I want to test knit, it’d be rather nice if I just happened to have enough DK of the same color lying around, but I feel guilty when there’s yarn sitting around with no particular future. Maybe at some point I’ll get over my guilt and my stash will expand and Ty will just have to deal.

The Gabriella test knit is going well so far. A bit of confusion has gone around, but mostly with the parts I expected to be confusing. Although I have a feeling that one of my test knitters hasn’t ever knit gloves or mittens before, because she seemed a little too confused with the rather generic thumb increases. But maybe I overestimate peoples ability to see the trends between patterns. Either way, my test knitters have kept in touch with me regularly, and I think I’ve cleared up most of their questions. So we’ll just have to wait and see where we are at the end. The thumb will be another tricky part I’m sure. And after it’s all over, I haven’t decided if I’d want to offer the pattern for free or if I’ll make it my first paid pattern. I’ll probably ask my test knitters what they think. It’d make me a little sad to make people pay, but it still surprises me how willing knitters are to pay for patterns.

Speaking of getting paid, my Etsy shop is up and running again! And by running I of course mean that items are posted there and occasionally someone looks at them, obviously I didn’t mean that there were actual purchases going on, that’d be silly. I’ve been thinking about getting labels for my Etsy items, there are some cute twill cotton ones on Etsy, but I have to think of a design and have Alex make it look pretty before I can buy them. Also, I might wait until I have a tad more interest in my shop before I go spending more money on it. Either way, it’s nice to be back and looking professional. I won’t be able to keep up this steady stream of adding new items for long, but I think it’s smarter than adding twenty things at once, and who knows, maybe I’ll have some spare time in the future and whip up some more of those fingerless gloves I love so much.

Happy knitting!

(pictures from the wonderful lemon basil shortbread cookies I made last night)