Back on Track

Thank you guys for your good thoughts when I ran into all those snags. I think I'm back on track now!

The Cabled Hoodie is being converted into a project for my daughter, Sweetie. I am using The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns as a template to recalculate this pattern in her size. This book is such a good reference! It's not perfect (for example, it's really irksome that the 32" and 34" chest sizes are considered kids' sizes), so you still have to do some recalculations, but it provides a tremendous starting point! I had to reknit most of the sleeve, but I'm happy with it now and think it's viable! Hooray! I started the left front and now that I've memorized the cable pattern, it's going much more quickly. I hope to finish this front piece by the end of next weekend.


Meanwhile, I've started the Wallis Cardigan using Ella Rae Silkience. The back and left front are done and seamed together so that I could try it on. So far so good (fingers crossed)! I've cast on for the right front. The bottom section is done in double knitting to create the interesting welts, and that takes awhile. After that, I expect it to go really quickly. I'm going to look back at the Knitting Daily Galleries to figure out where I want the sleeves to fall.



And finally, I decided to frog the Ruffled Jacket. I had fallen out of love with this, and it just wasn't worth the hassle of trying to figure out how to fix the problems I was having. It's really liberating to let it go.

P.S. To "Anonymous," who expressed interest in buying the Norah Gaughan pattern booklet...I'm afraid it's already gone. Someone else had snapped it up.

Speed Bumps

I'm one of those knitters who is more likely to turn to a new project when a current one is not going well, rather than plowing through the problem.

I thought I'd start off the new year right by attending to one of my UFO's, the ruffled jacket.

This is a fairly chunky yarn (Classic Elite Gatsby) and was supposed to have been a quick knit. But I already abandoned it once, after I had finished knitting the front and back pieces but was not happy with the 3-needle bind-off I used on the shoulder seams. So it got stuffed into the project basket. I resurrected it to take another stab at it. I undid the 3-needle bind-off and re-blocked the pieces. It was at this point that I realized the neckline on the back piece did not match the schematic.

I followed the directions and got a shape like this...


...when the schematic showed a trapezoid shape, not a concave neckline. I couldn't find any reference to this on the errata page (which was hard to find, by the way). I emailed Tahki Stacy Charles and got a nice reply back, saying they thought the directions were right and the schematic was wrong. But in thinking about it, I decided to go with the schematic instead, since you're supposed to pick up stitches from the neckline to make a ruffle, and it might be weird to have a ruffle sitting so far back if you go with the concave neckline. so I had to redo the back.


After all that, I seamed up the front, back, and sleeves, only to find that the sleeve cap bunches up in an unflattering way. Needless to say, the project is back in my basket.

In other news, I made good progress on the Juno Regina stole and really like it. But the Options needles I was using were driving me nuts since they kept unscrewing. Finally, I went to my LYS and bought a set of Addi Lace needles. Problem solved! That was a minor speed bump. I was going to get rid of my Options needles, but I think I'll try superglueing them to the cables--they obviously won't be modular anymore, but maybe I can at least get some use of them that way.

The other active project on my needles is this boatneck pullover, using Knitpicks Swish DK. I'm usually pretty lazy about doing a proper swatch, but in this case, I lucked out because I had just used the same yarn on the buddha pillow, so it served as a huge gauge swatch!



So far, things are going smoothly, but I did make some mods. I'm knitting this in a smaller gauge than the pattern calls for, to size it down. I'm knitting in the round and would have ideally added a "faux seam stitch," but I forgot to do so. I added waist shaping, since I almost always want that in a sweater. And finally, I reversed one set of cables so that the cables would be mirror images of one another, rather than exactly alike.

Not Working

My last day of work was last Friday. We took a short roadtrip this past weekend, so today was my first day at home. I have to say it is quite a change! I am taking care of the kids and getting some things ready for our Big Move. Once we move, I'll have to start getting ready for my new job, which will start in September. So there will be a lot going on in the next few months.

In the meantime, I was going to start the Diagonal Twist Princess Seam Jacket from Loop-d-loop. I had ordered yarn for this and had even had started a Craftster knitalong. But then I got pregnant and very nauseous, and I went on a long knitting hiatus, and I abandoned it. Anyhoo, at the time that I ordered the Classic Elite Gatsby yarn that the pattern calls for, I had only been knitting for 6 months. I was thrilled to be getting it for 50% off on clearance at Webs, but my inexperience cost me--of the colors available, I chose black with little white specks. Big mistake for a project that has such lovely textured stitch patterns. I started with a sleeve, and here's what I got. Can you see the diagonal twist stich pattern?

Neither can I...at least not well enough to make it worth it. So I frogged it and instead, I'm going to make this:


It's the ruffled jacket from the Filatura Di Crosa Fall/Winter 2004 Collection. The pattern calls for a discontinued yarn, Curly, done in garter stitch. I'm going to use this Gatsby yarn in reverse stockinette, which gives it almost a boucle look. We'll see if this one works out any better.

After my yarn diet, I intend to look for another yarn and come back to the Diagonal Twist pattern. Like the other Loop-d-loop patterns, there is interesting construction and great attention to detail. I found some other colors of Gatsby on eBay, but they're more than I want to pay, so I'll keep looking for another sub.