More troubles...

Bolero

I had high hopes for finishing up the bolero and wearing it to work by now. I worked on it for hours the other night but ended up ripping out my progress because the numbers weren't working out.

After drawing diagrams and looking at my newly blocked piece, I decided there must be a typo in the pattern. I looked on IK’s webpage and found “expanded directions" (not corrections) for the short row shaping, but nothing about picking up stitches which is where I was having trouble.

Before sending off a plea for help, I looked around online and came across this post. Thank God for people's WIP pictures. I was getting so confused because I was thinking that I'd be picking up sts along the entire perimeter, totally forgetting the seaming that will take place! After I saw that picture, it was totally obvious. The directions are fine.

After I cleared that up, I tried again (leaving the edges-to-be-seamed alone--duh!) to pick up and knit 246 sts across the front edging and collar, 90 along the back, and 54 along the sleeve cuffs. It didn’t work so well and has been ripped out and sitting in my knitting bag sans border ever since. It’s almost September so I have to get up the nerve to try it again.

MS3

Isn’t really a mystery anymore but I’m still not sure what its official name is so I’m sticking with what I’ve been using all along. I knitted it the other day after giving up on the bolero and was surprised to see how mistaken I was with its progress. Last time I talked about it, I said I was past the Melanie-recommended-lifeline but I’m still about 60 rows short of that point! My earlier statement must have been wishful thinking.

The yarn feels so thin after working with DK weight yarn and I found myself making mistakes. It could be because I’m out of practive with lace knitting, but most likely it’s been my lack of sleep mixed with my lack of time. Taking a break seems to have made the project more enjoyable though and I’m having fun following a complicated chart again.

I’m going to get up to that all-important lifeline, break the yarn, and put that part of the stole in a nice safe place and start all over again… The thought kind of makes my stomach drop but the stole is going to be a Christmas gift so I have plenty of time to finish it.

Red Raglan

I really tried to resist the urge to finish up the raglan but couldn’t stay away from the sleeves once I got started on them again.

I brought the project with me in the car on Friday; we had an appointment with the photographer (finally getting around to buying our wedding album), left ourselves 1.5 hours to drive a little over an hour, sat in endless traffic (both bridges were under construction), and arrived 3 hours later. I only knit while we were inching along and still managed to get a good 25-30 rows of each sleeve done.

When I saw that they were starting to look like sleeves--and weren’t giving me trouble like the other two projects--I couldn’t put them down. I’m almost done with The Other Boylen Girl and may actually have the raglan finished in time for Fall. :)

Finishing is next

Well, I'm done with most of the knitting. I'm at the point in the pattern where I pick up about a million stitches around the border. I figured it was a good time to block; the edges were all curly and I wanted to get a better idea of how the bolero would look when all sewn up. I pinned it out on my blocking board. Penny helped.

Hopefully it'll be dry in time for me to bring it to work tomorrow. I work the night shift so I'll have a nice long dinner break to pick up stitches and knit a border.

The weather canceled my trip.

The weekend didn’t quite go as planned. Instead of flying off to NC for a long weekend--to visit with my grandmother, aunt, and uncle--I stayed on Long Island. I did manage to get about 4 hours’ worth of knitting done in the airport while we waited for updates on our flight. My husband kept wandering off while I sat, listened to my audio book, and knit the bolero. Not that I was happy, but I wasn’t visibly twitching like so many of the other travelers. The airport wasn’t letting any airplanes take off and the flight ahead of us was still sitting on the runway when we gave up and went home.

Anyway, Dennis and I ended up having a lovely weekend despite this major (and somewhat expensive) shift in our plans. We went to the Planting Fields, drove around the North Shore, went to dinner, had munchies and drinks with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend, and relaxed on the couch. While on the couch, I knitted the bolero a bit more. By bedtime tonight, I was well on the way to finishing the left front of the bolero.

The pattern starts out at the back of the bolero, has you increase a bit, then knit even forever (36 rows). After you finish those rows, you divide for the left- and right-hand sides and work them one at a time. You can’t see much in the picture because both sides are still on the circ together but I am 1/3 to 1/2 done with the left side.

Just a quick post

I’m on my morning break so this will be quick, but I’m off to North Carolina in a few hours and wanted to post before continuing to neglect the blog. I’ve been knitting away on my bolero without much to show for it. I keep opting to drive home at lunch and at night I’ve been so tired so only a couple of rows at a time get done. I do have to say that it’s been wonderful to knit in front of the TV or while listening to The Other Boleyn Girl--it’s been a while since I’ve been able to do either while knitting.

I should have plenty of time to knit this weekend and I think I spent just as much time preparing my travel knitting as I did picking out my outfits. I wound three center pull balls and looked through the bolero pattern to pack the required notions. I’m hoping to finish it over the weekend and have optimistically packed the Classy Slip Up Socks for the trip home.

Three rows

I was baffled by the cable cast-on increase in the Fiery Bolero pattern so I looked in a couple of knitting books before even attempting it. The Knitting Answer Book had good instructions but I wasn’t sure how to translate the cast-on into an increase. Should I add one stitch 9 times throughout the row? Keep putting my needle between the brand new stitch and the one to its left?

I figured that I could find some useful information online and did a bit of searching. I came across a blogger who’d had the same problem with this pattern about a year ago. She said, “Instead of using a M1 or bar raise, you do cable increases at the beginning of the row. Well, I did, but over the space of 8 or 10 stitches, instead of one stitch. Oops. So there's all these holes in the piece where it should be just plain stockinette.”

That answered my most important question and I thought I could combine my vague idea of how to do the cable cast-on increase with the things that I knew weren’t right. It wasn’t all that easy though. I’m sure a lot of the problem could have been solved by consulting the instructional section at the back of the issue of IK but alas, I was nowhere near it any of the times I attempted the pattern.

On my morning break I restarted the bolero for the umteenth time. I went along merrily, putting my needle between stitches 15 and 16, pulling some yarn through, and placing the loop on the far right. As I added stitches, I kept thinking that this wasn’t as bad as I’d built it up to be. Then I went to knit across the row and realized that while all of my sts were on the left needle (as they were supposed to be), the working yarn was between the new sts and the original sts (which it wasn’t supposed to be). I also had loops of yarn going along the bottom of the casted-on stitches so it was blaringly clear that I was going about this the wrong way. Instead of always putting my needle between stitches 15 and 16, I decided to always put it between whatever stitches were at the end of the needle.

Riiiiiipppppppp

Not overly worried, I cast on again. Mind you, I'm getting this hung up on the third row of the pattern... (Ugh--how frustrating!) I did the long-tail cast on, purled a row, turned my work, cable casted-on 9 sts, easily knit across the row (woohoo!), turned my work, cable casted-on 9 sts, purled across the the 34 sts, turned my work, cable-casted on 9 sts, knit across the row, stopped to admire my work (I had figured it out!), squinted a bit at the WIP, pulled on it a bit, squinted some more, took some pictures with my cell phone camera, and ripped it all out again. Do you see those little holes? One side of the project is perfectly fine and the other has gaps. My 15 minute break was up so I warily tossed everything back in my bag.

During my evening break, I had 45 more minutes to knit because I chose not to go home for dinner. I spent a few of those minutes pondering over the cause of my knitting’s funky-looking holes. I had done the same thing consistently across the rows, counting each time to make sure I had the right number of sts. What was happening? Maybe I had actually put my needle through the loop of those holey stitches instead of between it and its neighbor.

Riiiiiipppppppp

I re-started, being extra careful not to put my needle through the wrong part or into the strand of yarn. Same procedure as above. Still holey.

Riiiiiipppppppp

I scratched my head a bit and realized that the holes only appeared on the side where I cable casted-on and then purled. I cast on again and did the knit-sides the same as I’d been doing, but changed the way I increased on the purl sides. Instead of putting my needle through from the front and knitting the working yarn, I poked my needle through from the back and purled the working yarn. Duh! So far, so good but I have to find that issue of IK to see if I could have saved myself all of this frustration.

What a learning experience though! Kind of gives you a sense of accomplishment...

Theme announcement and more

MS3

So Melanie announced the theme of Mystery Stole 3 yesterday. I've been very much behind everyone else and that actually turned out to be in my favor. She had us place a lifeline at row 287 but wouldn't tell us why. With the announcement of the theme, she explained it: the theme is Swan Lake and the last 2/3 of the stole is shaped like a wing. She knew that design wouldn’t appeal to everyone so she had us put in that lifeline so we could rip back to it and make the stole symmetrical if that’s what we preferred--that is exactly what I plan to do because the design is not my thing at all (or, I would guess, my mother-in-law’s).

Since I’m only a few rows past the Melanie-recommended lifeline, I won’t have to rip much out. I knew there was a reason I wasn't working on this project! (Other than the fact that I’ve been playing/cuddling with my new dog, entertaining guests, dealing with crap at work, and spending time with my husband). So now I just rip back to the lifeline, put the stitches on a holder, and start the “second” shawl. When I get up to the lifeline again, I kitchener stitch the two pieces together. I'm very excited by this idea because I absolutely adore the pattern up to this point.

Frosty Bolero

I swatched for the bolero yesterday. The pattern calls for size 5 needles but of course I need to use size 3s; I thought I’d have to go even smaller but after washing, my gauge was right on. I usually cheat and just measure the unwashed swatch…good thing I actually did it properly this time because now I know it should fit.

The yarn is fabulous--it's Debbie Bliss Cathay (50% cotton, 35% viscose, 15% silk) and very soft. The color is beautiful, creamy and white. I really do feel like there are a thousand shades of white (think about when you're choosing paint for your house, or look at the Yarn Harlot's opinion on the matter) and this one is the perfect color.

I tried to start it this afternoon at work but ran into trouble on the third line of the pattern where it said to knit the 16 sts while, using a cable cast-on, adding 9 sts each row. Yeah, not sure how to do that. I still have to look it up but I really want to get moving on it. It is August...

Book Review

I've never written a book review before, but I catalogued a book yesterday that I simply *must* gush about: No sheep for you : knit happy with cotton, silk, linen, hemp, bamboo, and other delights by Amy Singer. I’ve heard about this book a lot in the blogosphere but never thought I’d be interested in it. Well! I want to start from page 35 and knit almost every pattern in the book. There’s such a nice range to choose from, from socks to sweaters to shawls, hats, bags, and jackets. They’re all beautiful patterns and it’s nice to have 34 pages of useful information at the start of the book instead of the usual “how to cast on” type of stuff. The introductory material describes non-wool fibers, charts out the properties and quirks of various fiber families, explains how to successfully substitute, etc. I just skimmed (I was at work) but it really looks like this book will be a helpful and unique addition to my knitting corner. Check it out next time you're in the library or the bookstore!

Penny!

Here's another picture of Penny. :) My sister gave her a haircut last weekend and she looks cute as a button. We’ve gone on about a million walks and her legs have dramatically improved; we’re still working on her cough and her eyes but my husband and I were smitten right away so she’s been getting more love than she knows what to do with.