I'm alive

I haven't dropped off the earth. I haven't been online much, and while I've been knitting, I don't have that much to post about. I do have a small FO to post... but I'm currently on vacation, and haven't bothered with taking pics yet. I've been working on both the LG and GG sweaters, got yarn for a couple new undecided projects, but mostly have had sewing on my mind lately. I think it's because of the warm spell we had that convinced me I wouldn't be needing warm things any more, until today when the temperature dropped 20 degrees F. I've got a sleeve finished for the LG, and about half a sleeve finished for the GG. I will not knit on ANYTHING else until both of these are done, darnit! I am so ready to finish GG, and LG is going so quickly that if I don't finish soon, you'll know it's totally out of neglect.

Pics to come soon! Also, pics of a purse I'm sewing. It's going to be totally cute, so keep a lookout for it! :-D

I'll also talk about the book I won in a contest next time I post. I'll be home, and more inclined to use a computer than I am now.

I also finally found THE CABLE used for the Delphine sweater! It really looks just like it! It's on page 100 of Gisela Klopper's Beautiful Knitting Patterns. I saw it today and just couldn't believe it! But I didn't get to buy the book yet. I wasn't expecting to buy a book today, and didn't have the cash on me. I will get it for sure, and then I can return to the Delphine sweater. Joy, oh joy!

Of Delphine, shoes, and evening gowns

If you read this blog, you know I love sweaters. If you know me, you know I love shoes. And if you REALLY know me, you know I secretly love, love, love skirts and dresses.

Delphine and I had a spat. A major one! I'm not sure what made me think I could knit a sweater without a pattern. With major shaping AND cables. And all kinds of intricacies that I don't know whether I can handle. It's not coming along well at all. The shaping isn't making me happy, the sizing is making me want to cry, and I won't even go into the cables. AND I think with my bust, I'll have to figure out how to add short-row shaping to a cabled section! Let alone that I've never done short rows for shaping a sweater at all. I really don't know how they work, or exactly WHAT kind of shaping you are supposed to be doing with the short rows. Wow, I really did not think this through. I don't even know that this style of sweater is going to flatter me. Apparently, I am just a pattern knitter... NOT a designer! It's disappointing, but not surprising. I gain more respect for knitwear designers every time I pick up this darn sweater. I'm not exactly giving up, but I think I'm putting this sweater on hold... again. I guess I need more experience. *sigh* I just don't know what to do about this sweater. I've attempted all these calculations, read all of these articles on shaping... ugh! I'll feel like an absolute failure giving up, so I don't plan on it... but don't expect to see this thing any time soon! :-( I think I'm going to have to work on something else in its stead for now. I need to learn more!

Soo, since Delph annoyed me so... I worked a little on GG, and quite a bit on Sideways Spencer. I didn't have the concentration time I needed this weekend to work on Butterfly.

Here's a *gasp* progress shot of SS. The color is waaaay off. It is not a bright red as it appears in the pictures - it's really a deep, jewel toned red. NOT burgundy, either.



It is turning out very pretty. One thing I found out, though, when I blocked my E-town hat, is that this yarn seems to GROW. So I'm a little worried that this thing will end up too big for me, although it seemed ok in the swatch. I'm not worried that it will turn out too small, since I've read the stitch pattern really stretches.


Now, shoes. As already stated, I love shoes! One thing I always have problems with is finding a great pair of well-fitting shoes. I sometimes wear a 5, sometimes a 5.5, and, very rarely, a 6. It's hard finding cute shoes in a 5 or 5.5, believe me! My roommate happens to wear near my size also, and today she was wearing the cutest pair of shoes she'd just got. I tried them on, and they fit! I NEED them! Well, I don't NEED them, but I do hope to get a pair - they are very nice, dressy, black slides with a heel that isn't TOO high... the exact pair of shoes I've been searching for FOREVER! Here's a pic:



UGH! I love them!

I also love evening gowns. The only reason I ever bother to look at magazines or sites with celebrities is the beautiful gowns. For some reason, I'm usually most attracted to red gowns. Here are some I just adore:

This one is from Loralie.com, and it's called Show Stopper, for obvious reasons.



This one, also from Loralie, is called Passion:



The last dress from Loralie is called Salsa. I LOVE it!



The final beautiful red dress, from Yosa.com (she sells the most fabulous wedding and costume gowns!!), is appropiately named The Red Dress.



I wish it was considered OK to be married in red here. I would definitely be married in this dress!

Knitting annoyances

I haven't messed with the corset in a few days. I was working charts E and F, somehow managed to drop a couple of stitches, somehow managed to get horrible stitch counts, and decided I needed to rip back to chart D. Now, I don't mind ripping. The problem? Oh, I forgot to mark where chart D ended and charts E and F start! So now I have no idea how far back to rip (I know it can't be very). Ugh!

So then, I tossed it aside (ok, fine... carefully laid aside) and picked up the Fish Bag. I've never claimed to be a needlework genius, but I figured I could at least pick up the couple of embroidery stitches required for this bag. WRONG again! I messed with it for hours, and my stitches still looked crappy. So, I improvised for now, but I'm not entirely happy with the way it looks, and really need to figure out how to do the embroidery. It looks cute for now, and at least I can wear it around, but it's not 100%.

Still not wanting to try the corset top again, I thought I'd try swatching the big, fat cable for the Delphine sweater again. I'm starting to get a better idea of what to do for this, but so far my cable sucks. Someone from Livejournal figured out a beautiful version of it, but I'm still not doing so well, even with her instructions, which are really good. I figure a couple more tries, and I may have it.

I haven't had time to knit in a couple of days at all... school comes first and I have two exams on Wed - Organic Chem and Bacterial Genetics.

I really need to do something with my webpage. I think it's been almost a year since I updated. I need to link this blog to it also.

And, my pick for knit of the day is this



Rambling Rose, from Rowan 39. Beautiful! Rowan doesn't always do right, but when they actually do, they do it BIG. I love everything about this design.

Now, for some "I can't believe they did that!" I generally try to avoid this, but well, I just can't this time!



I have nooooo freaking idea what the photographer for this photo shoot was thinking... or smoking for that matter. All I know is that when I want to look at knitting designs, I should not feel like I'm looking at "barely legal porn." Honestly, I can't tell whether any of the knitwear is good or bad, because I'm too disturbed by the feeling of being a creepy pervert when I look at these pictures. See what I'm talking about here.

Ok, that's it for now!

More on the Delphine sleeve...

I now have two completed sleeve bottoms. Yay!!

I know people are just dying (ok, so maybe not!) to know what I'm doing for the top part of the Delphine sleeve. Well, I've been thinking about it alot, and have run two or three different ideas around in my head, but I've finally settled on something I think will look really nice. I don't particularly care for the holes in the sleeves of her sweater. True, they are very interesting and make you wonder how she did them, but well... I just don't see the practicality of a sweater with holes in it. I mean, the whole idea of a sweater is to be warm, and well, this just seems to be defeating the purpose a bit. So, instead, here is a little drawing of my proposed sleeve. The picture looks pretty bad, because I sketched it as quickly as I could. But anyway, here it is, with a little explanation.



This picture isn't perfect, but it's close enough. For the upper section, I plan to do another tube, again, picked up from the armband. I'm going to do two regular cables. The tricky part is that I want mine to cross over one another like hers do, except no holes. So I'm (hopefully) going to have two cables, that are going to travel in a curve and cross over at the elbow of the upper, and then come apart again at the armband... assuming I can figure this out. I'll do some shaping and all...hopefully this will work out; I'm just going to fudge it until it does. I am so glad I'm not afraid of ripping out!

A quick update

Well, I finished the bottom of one sleeve for my sweater. This is really going slowly, I know, but I'm so busy with school that I have little time for knitting, sadly. It looks nice, though, if I may say so myself. I'm very pleased with how it's coming along; more so than I thought I'd be after looking at the beginnings of this sleeve. I can't wait to see how the rest goes along. I'm still unsure what to do with the upper sleeves, but I've got a couple of ideas. Just a FYI, I did go back down to 9 repeats for the cabled band, and I am happy with the fit that way. I then picked up 36 stitches for my lower sleeve.

There are now two issues of Interweave Knits I'd love - Spring 2005, as I previously stated, and Fall 2004. I definitely want to make that Sideways Spencer someday, and the mag is hard to find. I can't find any site that sells it! So if you've got an extra copy of either, please let me know! :-)

Nothing else new here...

Can anyone guess what this is?

Yes, that's right! It's the Delphine sleeve. It's coming along rather well!

One down, one to go.

The cabled armbands, that is. I did "finish" one (in quotations because I've gotten it to the length I think I want it, although I may have made it a little long). I went ahead and did 10 repeats and have about 10", which is really almost an inch too long, so I may end up ripping about an inch out. I haven't have time to start on the second yet, and am really not sure when I will. One good thing though, now that the band is long enough to reach around my arm, I put it on a stitch holder and wrapped it around my arm, and it hasn't made me itch yet at all. So I may take back what I said about the WotA being itchy against the skin.

Still no luck finding the size 2 dpns around here for those Pomatomus socks. :-(

A little about the De sweater, and a lil rambling about random knitting stuff.

I tried to post this last night, but it didn't work, so I'm trying again.

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I wish there was something interesting and exciting to post today, but there is not.

I did, however, work my armband today long enough to get it to about 5". I can do cables quite easily (most are of the opinion that they are not hard, and I agree), but I'm pretty slow with them, partially because I have to watch my stitches all the time, to avoid dropping any, since I'm working on Al needles. For cabling, I'd prefer to have bamboo, but my inventory of bamboo needles is quite limited, and so are my funds. Therefore, I am cabling with cheapo Al needles that I actually like for nearly any other purpose. I'm generally a rather tight knitter, so with simple stockinette, I actually like the slipperyness of the metal.

Anyway, the cabled armband, knit rather tightly on size 6s, looks nice so far. There is one spot where I apparently twisted a stitch, and didn't notice it until a couple of repeats later, but since it will be on the inside of the sleeve (not inside the sleeve, but you know what I mean), I didn't worry about it. I am very pleased with the color I chose. Hopefully, I wear gray rather well (at least this pale one), and the color doesn't really look gray to me, anyway. Plus, it's going to be beautiful with my wonderful sequined shoes! Also, from knitting, I've found that if you stare at a very light color for a very long time, it begins to appear white until you actually look at something white.

I also finished my grandma's hat in time to hand it over to mom. I wanted to do more with it (like add a little star), but I didn't know when I'd be back in Monroe, and if I'd waited much longer, she'd have no need for it. We don't keep cold weather long; another reason my newfound love for knitting sweaters kinda stinks. Not that knitting beautiful sweaters stinks, just that rarely being able to wear them does. Ah well, why complain? It's not as if I don't love spring, and even our overly hot summers.

I've decided that with the purple sock yarn, I am going to make Pomatomus socks from knitty.com. Since I've never knit socks or lace-type patterns before, it may be quite a challenge, but the only reason I'm knitting a pair of socks is for the challenge anyway; may as well make it a good one. I can buy a whole pack of functional socks for cheaper than making this one pair, but I just want to make some. Plus, these are the neatest socks I've ever seen. They are seriously Awesome. Yes, with a capital A. Who could resist? I've got to find a set of size 2 double point needles first; something neither Wal-mart nor Michael's carries. It sucks, not having a real LYS. I think all the online stores I've searched thus far would be pretty expensive for one set of dpns, since they charge full retail price and standard shipping! How insane! Then again, I haven't checked Knitpicks yet... oh, no, I sense an addiction!

The hyacinth WotA has decided it wants to become a cute little cropped sweater from the Spring/Summer '05 Knit.1. I've heard bad reviews about this mag, and I will admit, there are things in there that I would never knit or wear, but there are also some gorgeous things that aren't too expensive to make, and I still have at least 3 things I want to make from the book, excluding the cropped sweater. I haven't subscribed, but I may someday. Then again, there are already so many free patterns (or cheap single patterns) I have found and want to make, that I probably wouldn't get around to doing any of them, and there are lots of free tips on the web. With great resources like knitters' blogs, the Livejournal knitting community, and knit related websites (such as stitchguide.com, a site from which I learned much), I'm not sure that I need to splurge on mag subscriptions, as much as I'd love to. I would, however, love to buy a book or two full of cables and lace patterns, and one of those books that pretty much covers everything. I haven't messed with lace yet, but I love knitting cables. It's just crazy, how something so simple can look so complicated. Well, following a chart is simple... designing my own is definitely a different story.

After knitting with the WofA, I've decided it may end up being a little itchy. I'm not too worried about it; I figure either hair conditioner or fabric softener should remedy this. When it comes closer to time, I'll probably post a question in LJ knitting about which is better for wool. I know if Downy could make that Red Heart not only wearable, but actually cuddley, it should work wonders for this, too!

This isn't about knitting, but oh my goodness, I figured out my Genetics homework on my own today! Go me. I should give the DNA scarf some time in honor of that, right? It won't be tonight though, because I have been typing, waiting to go out with my boyfriend. That should be fun! :-)

Yay! New yarn!

I am in love with Knitpicks now. Their colors are pretty much exactly what was pictured on my monitor. The hyacinth WotA is a beautiful deep blue-purple, exactly the color I've wanted. The fog for my Delphine sweater is a pale, beautiful silvery gray. The lilac sock yarn is gorgeous as well. I need to get Kool-Aid for dying the natural yarn.

I started on the cable for the armband of my sweater today, using the cable Cookie posted yesterday. I only have a small bit of it done, because I had to learn a provisional cast-on, but it looks nice! It's too wide on the size 8s, so I may need to go down a needle size or two. If that doesn't fix it, I may have to undo it and knit only the cable panel and seveldge stitches, without the extra 6 stitches of stockinette. I'd hate to do that, because I like the way the cable looks with the stockinette. So first, I am definitely trying smaller needles. Removing the stockinette will be my last resort.