5 days, 5 stripes

February 10, 2013 by 6 Comments

I’ve been working on the paulie cardigan and I’ve gotten 5 stripes finished:

paulie5stripesThe edges are a bit curly but you get the drift.  I’m really liking it so far and it’s fitting fine, too, so I can’t wait to get it done!

pauliestripescloseI must say that the purling rows are really slowing me down, but that’s OK.  It’s looking so pretty!

That’s really all I’ve got to show today, and nothing too thrilling has been going on in my life this week.  Chris and I are still doing wing chun with our friend and I’m already noticing a difference in my flexibility and maybe even weight loss.  (Is is too soon to really tell?  I dunno, I may be imagining that.)  It’s fun, in any case, and it really is making my mood better in general.  My old therapist was telling the truth when she said exercise makes you feel better!

Thanks for stopping by, hope you stop by again soon!

 

 

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progress and a book

February 5, 2013 by 5 Comments

Check out my office at my internship:

right of the door

right of the door

left of the door

left of the door

It’s the catch-all room for old kids toys and games, as well as old office equipment and documents nobody needs anymore.  For some reason, none of this can be thrown away.  There are two more desks in the corner from which I was taking the pictures, covered in more junk.  This office is at the end of the hall, so nobody really calls me to come and do anything anymore since I’m so far away (last semester my office was in the middle of the building).  This means I can just chill and do whatever in my spare time:

pauliegarterThat’s what I had done at my internship (I’ve since added a few more rows but it’s still garter stitch).  It’s the beginnings of this cardigan.  I’m about to switch to stockinette, divide the body and sleeves, and start the stripe pattern, so it’ll be interesting from here on out.  Check out my carefully marked pattern:

pauliepatternDo you mark up your printed patterns like this?  Sometimes I even write straight into books (if they’re my books).

And speaking of books, look what I got:

bookI found it used on Amazon, and it was recommended on The Sweaty Knitter‘s blog some days ago.  I’d love to be able to just make something without having a complicated written pattern, and this book tells you how.  The percentage system is easy enough, but the sweater blueprints provided definitely assume that you have some skills (like how to make an underarm gusset).  It does tell you how to steek, however, which is something I’d been wondering about.  Overall a very useful book with tons of information on how to design your own sweater and what yarns to use, and it has lots of colorwork charts from all over the world.  Pretty neat!

So that’s all for today.  Sorry I’ve been focusing on knitting more or less exclusively — I’m definitely in a crochet slump.  I have yarn but I just do not know what I want to crochet!  I’ve found some cute patterns on Ravelry, but nothing that jumps out and says “HANNAH, MAKE ME NOW!!!”  Or if it does say that, I don’t have enough yarn.  I love me some big projects…

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

 

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paulie: begin!

February 2, 2013 by 6 Comments

Thanks everyone for all of your feedback and advice!  I cast on the Paulie cardigan with the 3.50 mm needles and it’s looking pretty good so far:

pauliecastonMy increases are a little wonky but with blocking hopefully they’ll look a little neater.  I’m just so pumped to have finally started that I had to share, even though there’s not much to look at yet, haha.  You can see, though, that I’ve printed off my pattern and am carefully circling the stitch numbers for the medium size, and I’m checking off rows as I go.  The sweater looked a little big to me, but when I held it up around my shoulders and positioned it correctly, it looked right.  I can’t wait to get far enough where I’ll know for sure if I have to rip it out and start over or not…

That’s all I’ve got for today, I just had to share!  Thanks for stopping by!

 

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frustrated before the project starts

January 31, 2013 by 3 Comments

Yep, I’m talking about the sweater I’m wanting to make.  I finally got the 3.00 mm and 3.25 mm circular interchangeable needles in, all the way from Europe:

knitproneedles

 

When they came in yesterday, I set about immediately making the gauge swatches for my sweater, and what do I find out?  I need bigger needles than these, and I’ve had the bigger sizes the whole time.  I can’t believe that I went through all the trouble to find these and spent money on them, only to find that they don’t work.  The pattern calls for the 3.00 mm needles (or even smaller ones, which I couldn’t find at all), but I’m gonna have to give the gauge swatch another try with bigger needles.  Perhaps I should have tried the bigger needles before ordering the smaller ones, but how was I supposed to know that my gauge would be way off?  Anyway, here are my two unsuccessful gauge swatches:

pauliefirstswatches

 

Luckily for me, I have the KnitPro app on my iPhone, which tells me exactly what I need to do.  In addition to the gauge calculators (in both metric and inches), the app also has a yarn substitution calculator, a needle/hook size chart, as well as a ton of information on ease, yarn weight, and fiber content.  Definitely worth the small price for the app.  You can read more about this app on The Sweaty Knitter‘s blog.  This is what it looked like when I entered in my gauge swatch information (for the 3.00 mm needles, using the size small bust circumference measurement):

yarnpro1

 

And this is what it told me:

yarnpro2

 

Pretty sweet, huh?  And yes, I washed and dried the swatches before measuring them, just to be safe (I don’t think they changed at all).  So I’ll make another gauge swatch with bigger needles and see if that helps.  If I have to go up too many needle sizes I may just use one of the smaller ones and just make the pattern for a size medium sweater instead of size small.

In any case, I have some more swatching and measuring  and calculating to do before I can actually get started.  I’m off to go do that.

Thanks for stopping by!

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really?

January 26, 2013 by 12 Comments

I can’t believe it’s been a whole week since I posted last — it doesn’t feel like it at all.  I guess it’s time for an update!

Firstly, I got my yarn in for the sweater I’m going to make:

sweateryarn

It’s the Silver and Raspberry fingering weight Stylecraft Special acrylic yarn, and it is so soft!  I’m so glad I got this because it was very affordable, it’s deliciously soft, it won’t be too hot, and I can wash it!  I don’t usually make gauge swatches and I really shouldn’t need to with this yarn, but since it’s my first sweater I want to make sure everything is as perfect as possible, so I’m gonna swatch the yarn and wash it before I start.

So now all I’m waiting for to start the sweater is the knitting needle tips that I ordered.  They should be here soon, I think, but there was no tracking number in my receipt so I’m not sure where it is exactly.

I also ordered some blocking mats and T-pins from knitpicks.com, and they’ve arrived, but I don’t guess those are really worth pictures.  Can you believe I’ve been crocheting/knitting for years and I’ve never blocked anything?  Hehehe.

I’ve also been working on those knitted socks, but I don’t want to show you yet — I’m saving any pictures for the ‘ta-da’ moment.  I just have a couple more inches to go and then the ribbed cuffs, so it shouldn’t be long.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hopefully when you come back next I’ll have some socks to show you and maybe the beginnings of a sweater!

 

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