Sixth Time's a Charm?

So I bought some Vanna's Choice yarn with the intention of making myself a sweater (it was cheap at the box lot store!).

I have this v-neck cardigan I bought a couple years ago when I was working at Christopher and Banks, and I love it. I love everything about it, except sometimes wishing it had longer sleeves. I would love to recreate this sweater myself. I knit pretty well, I crochet, I've made sweaters before, how hard could it be?

Harder than you think.

First I had to find a pattern. Well, there are lots of patterns I like, but I wanted something very particular for this sweater. Found this pattern, which I really liked, with a pretty lace bit at the bottom. I've not really done lace, but I figured I could, well, figure it out.

It is worked with the bottom and sides done at once up to the elbows, so there are a lot of stitches to cast on. Well, I had to do it about three times, because I could not get that darn lace pattern to work out. It's only increases and decreases one after the other, but I kept getting to the end of the row and not having the right number of stitches. I am still not sure if this is user error or an error in the pattern. I choose to believe the latter.

So then I decided I would crochet the sweater. I found this pattern. The yarn I had was not the right size for the pattern, but I decided to wing it, using the stitch used in the pattern but just eyeballing the size according to the sweater I had that I loved. Crochet is so fast, I had almost half of the back done before I realized that the fabric I was creating was not as drapey as I would like. Back to the drawing board.

I have Doris Chan's book Everyday Crochet, and I love the patterns in it. I hadn't made anything in the book yet, though, so I thought this would be a good time to try it. I started working on the Haru pattern. It's a long cardigan pattern, but it would be easy enough to stop at the length I want because Doris's designs are worked from the top down. Perfect!

This pattern was working up quickly (all those shells!), but I had to rip it back two or three times to fix mistakes I was making (putting shells where there weren't supposed to be any shells). I had been getting gauge when I started, but when I got to the point where the arm holes become actual arm holes, I tried it on, and it was HUGE! Way too big. If I went down a hook size or two, then the crocheted fabric would be too stiff, not drapey like I wanted it to be.

I went back to my Ravelry lists and found this Drops cardigan. I liked the ones on Ravelry that people had made from this pattern, so I tried that.

I cooked right along with this project. Again, crochet is quick, and the stitches were big on this. I got the two fronts done, the back, and one sleeve, then I basted them together to try it on.


It fit beautifully. I had added a bit here and there to adjust the fit some, and everything I had done worked out perfectly (I'm better at this in crochet than knitting). I loved how it fit.

But UGH!! It looked AWFUL on me!! Talk about accentuating the negative! See where those fronts curve upward where they meet? My flabby belly was sticking right out there for all the world to see! Yuck! So I frogged the whole thing. Yep, I only had one sleeve left to go and I ripped it all back. So disappointing!

Big Sigh.

I hunted around again for a pattern I liked and found this one that might work, worked side to side. Meaning you start at the wrist, knit up to the shoulder, across the body, and down the other sleeve. Except I wanted long sleeves. So I worked out how many stitches to start with for the wrist (instead of the elbow like the pattern started with), and tried to figure out how many increases to make between the wrist and the elbow so I'd end up with the right number of stitches. Well, I got up past the elbow and really looked at it. Basically it has dolman sleeves, which I don't really like. So I pulled all that back out, too.

By now, I admit, I was getting a little irritated, wondering if I was going to have a sweater at the end of all this or not. Would I ever find a pattern I liked that would work AND fit?

I hunted through the patterns I had saved from the Knitting Pattern of the Day and Crochet Pattern of the Day calendars and found one that might work here.

So. I've been working on this one, in Purple Mist, and so far so good. I made it through the lace section at the bottom, which I made longer than the one in the pattern. Now I'm at the straight stockinette part, which I'll be working a bit longer, to make it as long as the C&B cardigan I have. It's almost time to start the armholes. We'll see how it goes. I like how it's working up so far, but I have to say, it's hard not to know if it's going to fit until it's done. I mean, I measured the sweater I have, I picked the right size of the pattern, I think, and I was getting gauge (or pretty darn close to it), so it should be ok. But you never really know until you try it on, do you?

I'm crossing my fingers.

First Yarn!!!

So I have been working with a drop spindle and have spun my first yarn. I am ridiculously proud!

I bought a kit two years ago at Wool Day at Canterbury Shaker Village, a kit for knitting a scarf with roving. I loved the color, took it home, knit up the scarf. Then last year at Wool Day I bought a drop spindle, so I decided to use the rest of the roving from the scarf kit to try spinning. I spun two lengths, then spun them together to ply it. There is only about 25 yards of it, and it is quite uneven, but I am very proud.

I wish I knew what kind of wool it was, but I can't find the directions from the kit, which would have the kind of yarn and the farm it came from. I'll have to keep looking.

Now to find some other fibers to spin!

Tunisian Dishcloth

I've done some Tunisian crochet before, but not a lot, and I'm not sure if I have ever actually finished a project with it before. I was excited to see this post at the Hooked On Needles blog. Tunisian Short Row Dishcloth
Mary Grace did a great video tutorial, and I had a finished tunisian dishcloth in no time! I was wishing I had some other colored cotton around, because it's a bit boring in just plain cream, but it was fun to do.



I'm ready to try something else in tunisian, I think. I love this pattern for a Tunisian Jacket at Crochet Insider. Got the link from Mary Grace's blog. I've tried a couple different size hooks to start this, but I end up with a very thick cloth, a bit too heavy for a sweater for what I want right now, but that's ok. I'd have to fool with that pattern to make it fit, but maybe I'll have time to do that in the not too distant future. Short rows are sooo easy in tunisian!

Afghan From Free Yarn

You can't tell the color very well in these pictures. I just couldn't get a picture that got it right. It's a dark moss green, really.

I would compare it to Homespun by Lion Brand in size and texture. After the first layer or two came off the cone, it was pretty flat, but boy did it come out nice after it was washed! Very fluffy and soft.

I used a pattern from this booklet: Snuggle-Up Baby Afghans I've used the "Squares" pattern for some scrap squares I've been crocheting over the years and holding onto to eventually make up into a scrap afghan, and used that same pattern for the squares for this. I'm not sure of the hook size, though, because it's an old wooden one I've had for ages.

It was fun, and was quick. It's going to a charity, but not sure which. It's kind of neat how the holes at the corners of the squares make a secondary pattern.

boooorrrrriiinnnggg

Knit my husband some socks. Took me a long time, and boy was it boring! All that black, over so many stitches! He tried them on and wore them for a bit to see how they felt, hence the cat fur on them.

I don't think I'll be making him any more socks for quite awhile. :-)

Free Yarn!!!

At a meeting at the public library the other night I heard those two words and practically salivated until I could find out what it meant. Turns out a local business (Perfect Fit Industries, I think it is) was giving away free yarn. The date, today, the time, 8-1.

I got there at about 8:05 or 8:10, and had to walk a long way from the parking spot I found, to join a line of about 150 to 200 people. I don't think that is an exaggeration, either. This is what I got:


Twelve cones all together, each cone about 10 inches tall, mostly of a worsted type weight and bulky weight. This is the stuff they machine knit with, so it doesn't have a lot of stretch to it. (I've had stuff like this before.) The biggest rolls will be enough for an afghan each, if not more.

I lugged a Bean bag, a basket thing, and two tote bags back up the hill to my car. People were taking the boxes that had been emptied and dragging them along behind them as they looked for more. It was a bit crazy, but people were pretty polite. A lot of the bigger or more colorful stuff was gone shortly after I made it in, but they were taking more out of the warehouse, too. I left, figuring I have more than enough to last me quite awhile, and to let some others have a chance. I promised myself that I wouldn't go crazy and take home a bunch of stuff I wouldn't use just because it was free. There is only one that I wish I had more of, because I love the bluish-green color, but that's ok.

I left there at 8:50, and unless they had loads and loads more in the warehouse, I bet it was all gone by 9:15. I don't think they realized how quickly it would all go! Although, there was a lot of very thin, almost threadlike stuff that would probably still be left. Unless you had a very fine knitting machine or could ply them together on a spinning wheel or something, it would be tough to use. It's too bad, because they had some pretty colors of it.

It was fun, worth getting up a bit early for, and now I have plenty to keep me busy for a fair amount of time to come!

Scarf and Shawl

I have a bunch of yarn I picked up at a thrift store, plus some yarn that I think had been my grandmother's. I like to try to use those up. Plus, it gives me something to work with when I don't have money to buy more yarn! A lot of the yarn is just one skein or maybe two, which leaves me in the same quandary as in the previous post.

I had two skeins of a wool/nylon mix in blue, and two skeins of the same yarn in a mauve color. Originally I was going to use them both to make a triangular shaped shawl, but I got half way done with it and didn't like how the colors looked together. So I ripped it all out. Since I couldn't find a pattern for that amount of yarn, I just used one of the stitches out of this book:

The Complete Photo Guide to Crochet. It is awesome. Great pictures of different stitches, with the directions in written and graph form. It's terrific. (There is a knit version, too, but I've not looked through that one). So I picked out a stitch I liked and that I thought wouldn't take up too much yarn, and here it is:

And another view. It's not really all that long, but enough to drape over your shoulders. Not sure if I'll keep it like this or not.

Maybe I'll pull it all out and make something else, if I think it's too short. Here's a close up of the stitch:

I have the mauve one almost finished as well. I think it might even end up a bit shorter, because I made that one a bit wider, but maybe one of the skeins I had had been partially used or something. We'll see.

I also had a skein of Lion Brand Wool Ease, and figured I could make a scarf out of that. I found the pattern on Ravelry here. It's a very simple stitch pattern, and it works up super quickly.

I wish I had made it a bit wider. You start with a chain, and because of that would have ended up with one end that was scalloped and one that was straight, so I went back at the end and added a scallop to the other end. You can kind of tell that was what I did on the left hand end, but it looks better than it would have otherwise. Next time I'll try doing the little shell stitch into different holes to make it look a little more like the other end. Still, a pretty little scarf.