more knitting ponderings

I have a possible hat pattern stuck in my brain and the idea is simply not letting go, so I must attempt it! :)

I'm imagining it in suede, but I'm not quite willing to rip that stuff out yet - or look for the remaining ball.

I have some variegated cotton, although I truly doubt it's enough to do what I want. But as I'm really just messing around I'm sure I can fudge it a bit. If I get desperate then I'll go in to walmart! :)

I have to try and calculate how many stitches to cast on and work with this pattern. I think I'll do 120 stitches - size 8 needles - peaches & cream cotton yarn.

Knitting update

I'm working on the last panel of the poncho and decided to try out the applied I-cord that I had planned for the edging. I'm doing this for several reasons:

1. The yellow I have is in many small balls, so, if I used just that there would be a great many extra bumps in the edging.
2. I probably don't have enough yellow to do what I want.
3. Because I don't exactly know how much I will need, I'm doing a bit more than 12 inches and then I will rip that out and measure it.
4. I needed to actually try out the stitch and see if it looked OK.


#4 backfired on me - it looked awful. I could see a line of the panel colour showing through where I attached the yellow! I tried several things last night, adding a yarnover, applying it with the wrong side facing me, with the right side facing me, nothing looked good.

So I just set it aside and worked on the last purple panel. This morning I got the brilliant idear of doing a line of crochet (I'm pants at knowing what stitch I'm actually doing, I'm sticking the hook into the ladder between knit stitches, hooking a loop, bringing that loop up and then through the loop already on the needle) (this procedure is done with right side facing me) THEN with the right side still facing me, doing a 3 stitch applied I-cord. This method gets the result I wanted!

Now I just have to find the wrappers so I can determine what colour I have - there are two yellows in this Silky Wool - sunflower and gold. And it's difficult to tell which one I have from the teeny pictures I see online, plus the inevitable colour changes that occur when you post pictures on the net and view them through different monitors.

See - this is why I save all those wrappers! Although they're strewn about the house, so it's not really doing me much good at the mo! :)

It's March!

And it's actually windy! I think this is the first time in several years that's it's been windy during the first part of March. It's a cliche to say March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. Well, it hasn't happened that way for at least three years, it's been backwards, and we've had simply awful growing years.

Dare I hope that we have a good gardening year? I'll let ya know in October :)

I still haven't felted that blue purse. Haven't sold the brown one either, but that could be because I'm using it. :)

If I ever get my connection sorted out I'll upload some pics to flickr. The last time I tried it was just disastrous and I have been lax at trying again.

Been grooving to Boston Legal Season One thanks to Netflix. Been knitting Tilted Ladders with Silky Wool and it's just gorgeous. The plan is to make it a rectangular poncho.

Still undecided about what cable to use for the Tree Shawl - the library found me two of the Harmony Stitch Guides, but that half-remembered cable that I think I saw last year isn't in either of the books. :(

I should be copying stuff off my harddrive. I finally ordered Tiger OSX for Angus and as it's the full install, not just an upgrade, well, there's stuff I wanna save.

Maybe later. I'm hungry.

halfpast february...

I ordered seeds! Why are there just sooooo many yummy sounding tomatoes? And no matter what we grow we always fall back on Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter. But, we won't find the Absolute Perfect Tomato unless we experiment with new seeds! :)

I get very excited over planning the garden - trying to decide what gets grown where, what we have to keep separated to save seeds.

grumblegrumblegrumble

I have pictures I want to upload and I keep getting disconnected...

The Strangely Lumpy, Oddly Bumpy Felted Tea Bag

This started out as a different design and eventually morphed into this:


I could see the bumps, but thought perhaps felted would take care of that.




It didn't. Instead it seemed to enhance the bumpiness.


You can see this especially from the top view:



But, well, it is roomy! :) I think it needs some sort of closure at the top, but I'm not sure what that will be.

Originally it was inspired by the mitre squares from my son's blanket. I rather liked the V shape of a half-finished mitre square, but didn't like pointy bit at the bottom. So I though perhaps I could knit extra sections. I still may try that, just for the halibut, I can get another skein of wool using the AC Moore coupons.

it be friday...

and it was another $80 for another teeny bottle of eye drops. that aren't working either. I've now spent almost $250 on eye drops and office visits, not even counting the future bill bomb for whatever the deductible will be, and I still have a red eye!

I had to pitch my lenses and now I don't have enough money to buy new ones.

Anyway. Knitting things! I finished the heart/cable design, only took me three ripouts and graph changes! :) this is a sucky picture, maybe I'll do a better one soon.

yet another brilliant design idea

The felted purse got rearranged so many times! It's finally almost ready to chuck in the washing machine - just have to I-cord the last of the yarn for the straps. And remember to take pictures!

And yesterday I had another brilliant idea that has gone through three graph changes and to rip-outs already. I suppose I should have taken a picture of the last attempt, but it's too late now! :)

It will be a 6-7 inch block with a cabled heart. I think this last design will work out. I wasn't taking the extra stitches into account and it threw off the graph, which is why it got ripped out. Also, it was a wee bit too long/big.

I promise pictures soon.