Thursday, July 17, 2008

Euroflax sport: An idea.

That damn high maintenance yarn has been laundered, but not yet wound into balls.

After knitting up the shawlette, I have an idea for what to make of these skeins...

and I think I'm going to need a third one. *sigh* oh well, I will see when the time comes.

Scheaffer Anne: Star stitch shawlette

This skein of sock yarn? Loved it.

but I hate knitting socks. this is a simple fact. so it laid around for a while, until I decided to make it into a shawlette while I taught myself Star Stitch.

It's nice. I just have to figure out what I want for a border...

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Louet Euroflax: high maintenance.

I have been tearing my hair out over this stuff.


I bought two skeins of Wuroflax wetspun fine yarn in a beautiful shade of brown, and it defies me at every turn.

apparently it biases when knitted in stockinette, so my notion of a simple draping design is out. apparently it's best for lace.

I suck at lace.

it's also stiff as twine and it doesn't matter how tiny my needles are, the stitches come out huge.

well the good ladies at ravelry say that it should be prewashed.

I've already wound it into balls.

*headdesk*

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Adventures in Bargain Yarn - The Sean Sheep Sweater

I think I'm going to frog it and start over.

But I stare at it, all those stitches, and I just kind of muppet flail at undoing so much work. but at the same time, I've made a number of mistakes, there are things about it I want to change, and changing them means that I have to start over from the beginning.

And I'm going to. it may be bargain yarn, but it shouldn't be *wasted* yarn.

Please hold this thread as I walk away...

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Sean sheep generic raglan sweater

...I don't have it in me to do a whole bunch of complicated cables, at the moment. The sean sheep is just a top down raglan, very plain jane mindless stockinette I can pick up and put down.

and even that sparks future project ideas. I have some more bargain yarn stashed away, and I'm going to make a dress from it. crazy to knit fall and winter garments in may, but...

The linen is intimidating me, bigtime. I'm scared that two skeins aren't going to be enough for a top. I can't stockinette it because it will bias. I didn't really want to make a lace top from this yarn, but I don't see much choice. so the linen project is still percolating, while I think it over and decide what's going to be best for it.

And i'm looking forward to this sweater. I think it's going to be just what I want - a classic.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Adventures in Bargain Yarn - Sean Sheep Armytage

I'm not going to call this sweater an original design or anything like that. I'm getting the cable stitches out of vogue stitchionary, and I don't think it's quite cricket.

Yeah I'm doing all the work of calculating how it works and everything, but eh. this is more of an exercise than anything else.

I'm not going with an allover Aran. I'm just doing a motif down the center front and back and down the arms, and that's basically it. I'm not going to get the stitch definition I would want for a formal aran, so I will save that for a better wool. like cascade 220, because I love that yarn.

Right now I'm doing a bit of calculation about how to place the cable motif while I'm doing the raglan increases and such. it's just a bit of marking the charts I wrote up, really. then once I've done that I can get rolling on seriously knitting it. It'll be nice to have for cool days, and I know i've got plenty of those. I swear spring is never going to come...

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Adventures in Aran Design - Cables that SHAPE.

I've been in a creative frenzy. The ideas never seem to stop.

Just now I was on ravelry, and someone was asking about a girly aran pattern - a cabled sweater with feminine shaping. and my first thought was, "do ribbing on the sides."

Then it became, "create a cable motif with the shaping built in." and i have an amorphous sketch in my mind.

I'm going to go chase it for the Sean Sheep bargain sweater....