Git ‘er Done Monday

I’ve managed to achieve several things. I finished the Stripy Beetle Cardigan, but couldn’t get it modelled by the childerbeast for today’s post.

It is gigantically roomy. She is unlikely to wear it out until she grows (a mile!) but she has been snuggling into it every morning.

I made some little baby Ugg Booties from Candy Babies. They come in a knit and crochet version AND there is a matching hat! The knit versions are free, but I already had the book and I knew the crochet version would make up faster since my crochet skills are on par with my knitting skills. I put a photo up on facebook and my friend (who is with child) loves them. I even had someone ask if I sold them because she needs to buy a pressie for a baby that is on the way! Very flattering.

On the Git ‘er Done front, I frogged the Fuzz Bunny Hoodie thing. After sewing the shoulders together, the child relented and admitted she probably wouldn’t wear it. YAY! It’s GONE!!

I finished the SeaShrug from Drops Garnstudio, hopefully photos will be forthcoming… but I’m pretty lazy so it might not happen for aaaages.

Currently working on a seed stitch cowl in Chantilly (it claims to be bulky, but it isn’t, it’s probably worsted. Liars). Is squooshy and delightful. No pattern, just long-tail cast-on and seed stitch around and around and around.

 

In which I achieve something and ponder the future.

Git ‘er Done, Son has resulting in the completion of my daughter’s Stripey Cardigan, which will be present on Friday (hopefully with modelled pictures).

In other news, I’m working on Drops Sea Shrug in ICE yarn’s Summer Lase. Yeah, I didn’t swatch and I don’t care, what you gonna do about it?

In other news, Pixie thinks she is a cat. Although I doubt a real cat would deign to behave in such  typically cat manner, they usually eschew conforming to stereotypes.

Finished Object Friday FTW

Delphine is done.

I only made a few adjustments. Firstly, I did a provisional cast-on and when it was finished I used a picot bind-off so that the top and bottom would be more matchy-matchy.

I also mucked around with the dividing for armholes and neck, as detailed in a different post. It didn’t really “change” anything, but it made more sense to me

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Yeah, baby… looking pretty sweet.

Oh! And furthermore to my post on Wednesday, I met one of the Merriwa Jumbucks! Judith was part of the team whose record time of 4hrs and 51mins from the sheep’s back to the back of the shearer is still unbroken! Very coincidental and serendipitous.

Judith is one of three ladies who have generously volunteered their time and resources to teach our local home-schooling group various fibre arts, including knitting, crochet, weaving and spinning. When I expressed my *passionate* desire to learn to spin and my deep and profound longing for a spinning wheel, Judith mentioned that one of her friends may be willing to part with a wheel for a ridiculously low sum that is within my budget. Fingers crossed! I’m really looking forward to the kids learning all the fibre arts and gaining some new skills. There seems to be a really strong emphasis within the local community on passing on heirloom arts and crafts to the younger generations. I did mention the upsurgence in knitting and crochet amongst my generation, but I don’t think they really believed me…

Part of Tami’s Amis FO Friday initiative XD

 

So we went to Merriwa

Ah, Merriwa. The man has an outside broadcast in Merriwa on Wednesday so he wanted to get a feel for the place beforehand. We drove out there on Sunday and pottered around a bit. I will say this, they have an awesome take-away, Bits and Pizzas. SO DELICIOUS!!

That is not the point. The point *is* that we visited The Hut - a tourist welcoming centre type of place. The main thing happening in there is the tables and tables of old school crafts that are being sold on commission. You know the type of stuff I’m talking about, the things that give knitting and crochet a bad name – nasty acrylics in garish colours knit into horrendous items that serve no practical purpose (Barbie toilet roll covers, anyone? Heaven forbid our guests see anything so crass as nude toilet paper!!). These are the things that the uneducated think of when you tell them you are a knitter and they give you a look of disbelieving disgust because THAT is what knitters make.

Everything was priced well below the cost of time, materials and production, a major issue in the handcrafting world. Price it cheap, people will think it’s “cheap”. I could rant about how under-valuing your work affects other artisans, but that would take a while and sound really obnoxious so I will spare you. Suffice to say, it hit on two of my hot buttons – fugly yarn creations and under-selling.

The truly interesting thing was the display about the Merriwa Jumbucks, a team of knitters and spinners that entered the International Back to Back Wool Challenge for quite a few years. They still hold the world record time of 4hrs, 51mins. To understand how incredibly impressive that is, bear in mind that the wool challenge involves taking the wool from the back of the sheep to the back of person. The sheep must be sheared, the yarn spun and a sweater knitted. They did it in under five hours… THAT IS AMAZING. I got a little excited, I may have embarrassed my daughter by rabbiting on about how cool that is. I was so excited I forgot to take photos, but if you take a look at the links above there are a few snaps of the event.

I have a lot of end-weaving to do. Better get onto it.

Not so much of Gittin’ stuff done.

I’ll tell you something – doing distance education with your child is a LOT of work. We’re heading into our third week and still getting settled in. I’m hoping that when we get on an even keel I will have time to knit and blog about it a bit more.

I did attempt some Git ‘er Done, Son. 

I had already done the body and a sleeve of my daughter’s Stripy Cardigan. This is one that I’ve been making up as I go along, basing the design on one of her favourite cardigans that she has outgrown.

This is how much I managed to get done, but I have written out what I did on the other sleeve so that I can match it up. Still to do is the making up, the hood and button band. I’m musing about whether I should continue with this, considering I didn’t get much done on it last week or if I should stick to the original plan and work on another project.

Delphine is nearly finished! I just have to weave in ends, put some buttons on and thread a ribbon through the neckline. Fingers crossed I’ll have an FO Friday this week!

This is a sneaky peak of a project I’m hoping to write a tutorial about…. ooooh, mysterious.

I’m easily distrac…. Bunny!

I kinda got derailed with last weeks Git ‘er Done project. It distracted me from from my current WIP, Delphine.

I chose the languishing Forest Petals Shawl and enjoyed it so much that I barely put any effort into Delphine!!

The little tunisian squares are so fun! Doop-de-doober-doop. (that’s my merry little tunisian-ing tune).

Coming along nicely, right? I added about four tiers this week, it’s been a busy one for us. Then I noticed, waaaay back at the beginning, on about the fourth tier….

GACK!! A mistake! I’m currently debating how much I care. There is no chance of frogging that far back… sacrilege! I think I have devised a way to “fix” it, but it’s risky and will involve a lot of end-weavery. Or I could leave it. It really doesn’t stand out too much – but the problem is that I know it’s there.

WIP Weds #3

I continue with Delphine.

Here she is, displayed on my more-pleasingly-shaped-than-myself-but-still-numerically-accurate dress form.

She’s looking a little roomy in the bust region. That being said, most stuff is a little roomy in the bust area on me. I’ve made my peace with that.

I really have to tell you - Delphine has STUPID instructions for dividing the armholes and dividing the neck. Seriously STUPID. I looked at the pattern. I looked at the errata. I read the forums. I read the pattern comments. Seriously, the plan sucks.

For the set-up row one is supposed to work the back, divide for armhole and put the back stitches on a holder. We work to the middle front then attach a new ball and work the remainder of the front, since we’ve been working in the round this is all happening on the right side of the fabric.

This is the point where it gets ridiculous:

In order to maintain the integrity of the stitch pattern (so that the working of decreases and yarn overs are on the right side) we are supposed to begin the first row of the front ON THE RIGHT SIDE… essentially, we are supposed to cut BOTH of the balls of yarn and reattach rather than working a WS row as the first row of the front shaping. (I’m not sure I’m explaining this very well, but it is really hard to explain something that makes SO LITTLE SENSE! I mean, with one of these balls of yarn, we’ve only worked one row of half of the front!)

Since I also want to maintain the integrity of the stitch pattern and keep the increases and decreases on the right side of the work, but I really don’t want to have to cut and reattach the yarn, I am proceeding thusly:

• Work the back, mark the armhole division.
• Work the left side of the front, mark the neck division.
• Work the right side of the front

Now watch closely, this here is where it gets fancy:

The back is worked on a different sized needle, so I’m working the first row of back stitches onto the new needles and leave them there (with little rubber bands on so the stitches don’t fall off).

Then I work the first row of the left front, attach a new ball at the neck division and work the right side with the new ball, bringing me to where the designer wants me to be at the end of the first row of front shaping without the cutting of yarns and all I’ve really done is gone ahead and worked the first row of the back ahead of schedule. I’m so tricky. I feel like I’ve really kicked this pattern’s arse.

Part of Tami’s Amis WIP Weds initiative