ruffles

yeah, so that didn't work.

More designs

I need to finish the starflower jacket design. But that back circle/octagon thingy bugged me, so I changed it, only the changes made it come out too big. So, ripped it back a bit, only to realise that it needed to change back even further, at the first design shift. So, that's ripped out, pattern is re-written and needs to be knitted so that I can work on the sleeves.

But I also have a ruffled sunhat design lurking in my brain. Tried to work on the math this morning only to have my brain just rebel and ended up going at it the long hard way, only to finally realise that it was actually so very easy to get the proper number of stitches. duh.

There are a truly massive number of stitches for one small hat, but they will get decreased, so that's not so bad. I hope it works out OK. If not I'll find some other hat on Ravelry and make that.

But, right now, the sun has gone down a bit, there's a lovely breeze out there and the weeds are invading my garden.

July knitting

I should be finishing the white hat, but I was slightly frustrated that I had to buy another skein, basically just to finish the bow. It's wool, so I'll be able to use it for felting or maybe I'll just get another skein of white and make another hat and put that on Etsy.

The Flapper Swag Hat is up for sale on Ravelry! It's been favourited a bit and queued up a few times, but no one's bought it yet. *sigh*

The Starflower jacket thingy beckoned to me. It also whined that it needed the mesh pattern rearranged, so that the points line up better. So, I'm trying something else there. The circular needle has a kink in it or something, 'cos it keeps feeling like it's twisted. It annoys me, but I can't do much about it until I start the sleeves. Or buy another set of size 7 needles.

Also have a baby-sized cotton sunhat design in my head. I want ruffled edges, an eyelet pattern on the hat, maybe try out the other decreases. Just need to get past the ruffles first. I don't want to use the long tailed cast on for 200+ stitches, but this crochet cast on is too loose. I guess I'll try the cable cast on.

Also very frustrated by technology lately!

So, I wanted to sell patterns

but apparently I need a PA tax license thingy. sigh. I hate filling out forms! Writing that pattern was hard enough! And yes, it's a cute hat, but is anybody really gonna buy it? OK, one person bought it. But am I really going to make anything to sustain a tax number? sheesh.

Maybe I can use it for Etsy and try and sell the finished hats. and things.

design elements

So, I want the top of this cloche hat to just sort of close up, not swirl the decreases one way or the other. And I decided to do paired decreases right next to each other. Well, I love hoe K2tog looks and want to totally mirror that. It's not happening because I'm not decreasing every round. And so I tried slipping a stitch on the knit round. That gives the left leaning decrease line a nicely linear look, however, it looks different than the line of K2tog next to it. You can see the left line has longer stitches.

This annoys me.

So, there will be more ripping out of the hat in a bit, but I'm trying something first.

Nope, that didn't work either. I guess it will just have to be K2tog decreases.

more hats!

I see designs in my head and have this ridiculous notion that I can make it come out my fingers and into the yarn and bingo, there's the thing I saw in my head.

Some designs do make it out and mostly look like how I imagined, but they've never made it out on the first go. I'm not sure why I think I can just start in on something and it'll come out right.

The new hat design has... issues. I *think* short rows will fix them. But, I have to try it out on some experimenting yarn first. I think I rather like the Japanese short rows tutorial from nonaknits.

And so I'm experimenting. gotta remember to write down the things that work.

Hats!

I have lots more ideas stuck in my head, but I'm determined to finish up this kimono cardi first! I may even wear it to NYC, despite the high temps. 'cos, well, it's cotton, so it wouldn't be much heavier than a t-shirt, right? Maybe I can find some khaki pants or a skirt.

I managed to get the Flapper Swag cloche, plus the bow, out of two skeins of Tahki Cotton (but I needed 3 skeins of the Merino 5) I know they're different fibres, but there's supposedly less yardage on the cotton skeins, so, go figure.

Since I have a skein of cotton leftover I'm going to try to modify it to a baby size and use some funky new ribbon yarn for the swag parts and the bow. I have at least two other ideas lurking in there, but the green yarn is giving me a different gauge in the round, so I'll need to knit a bit more and get a proper gauge swatch.

I had a button idea for the Ella Rae hat, but it just didn't suit me. I plan on looking for something in NYC. The colours are very moody though and I wish I had chosen a different colour.

Trawling Rav for baby hat and bonnet patterns and finishing up the sleeve on the kimono cardi. I did actually finish the whole thing and decided I didn't like how the colours striped on one sleeve, but it won't take long to finish that.