I'm Such a Knitter: January 2008

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

It's looking up

Attempt number three-and-a-half seems to be the charm. I casted on again and knitted the first few rows. So far, so good! I’m going to put a lifeline in even though it’s so early.

I don’t know why I was having such a hard time getting this project started. The chart is clear and it’s not as complicated as MS3... Oh well. I’ll post a picture when I got a bit more done.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Grrrr....

Muir is giving me some trouble, to put it mildly. It all started out so nicely--I used my new swift to wind my hank of Alpaca Cloud into a center pull ball. I casted on at lunch on Saturday and happily knit a few rows.

That's when I noticed the problems: I was coming up a stitch short on my RS rows and my stitch count was wrong on each WS row.

I went online in search of guidance and found, on the Yahoo! Muir-along group, that there were indeed supposed to be 125 sts on each and every row. Hmph. I also found more info about the picot edge and what I thought was an instruction not to really K1 after the picot because there was a K1 in the midst of the picot. I printed off some stuff, put it in my knitting bag, and called it a night.

Today at lunch, I tried for a second time. This is the first project that I've needed to do a crochet cast-on and I CO and picked up the 125 sts a bit tightly the first time; this time around a did it a bit looser. One poster had commented that the set-up was as follows: 5 edge sts, 9 sts right border, [96] stitches in the repeats, 10 sts left border, and 5 edge sts. I counted an extra time, putting st markers at these locations. Hrmph. I couldn't get past the first three sts! I put it back in my bag and left it alone for the rest of the afternoon.

This evening, I sent a post to the Muir-along and attempted again. Things seemed to be looking up until I got to the end of Row 1 again and noticed that I had an extra stitch. Grrrrrrrr! Now I'm thinking that yes, I am supposed to knit the stitch after the picot. I'm going to wait for a reply to my inquiry before I give it another shot.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Starting the year off with some shopping

Projects in the queue that will be cast on for as soon as the yarn arrives:

Dennis’s Socks – bought three skeins of Knit Picks Essential yarn in “Ash” (gray) and will knit them up using this pattern. I recently raved to Dennis about how well hand-knit socks fit and he asked if I’d knit him a pair of socks. Since he almost never asks for anything, I said “of course!” I went online to hunt down a pattern and buy some yarn. Since I’ve been happy with Essential so far, I went to Knit Picks in search of Essential in black (as he requested). They didn’t have that color in stock so I bought a slightly-less-boring ash gray. When it arrives I’ll cast on with my shiny new sock needles.

Muir - I’ve been admiring this pattern since it was published in Knitty’s fall issue. At first I was thinking that I’d knit it up for my mother in time for her birthday but that obviously isn’t going to happen (her birthday is tomorrow and the yarn still hasn’t arrived). I made my MIL a shawl for Christmas and I think my own mom was a bit jealous. She can’t wear silk though so new yarn needed to be purchased. Again, I stuck with something I knew: Alpaca Cloud. I bought Tide Pool Heather, which is a nice green-blue color.

Project that I’ll cast on for as soon as I get up the nerve:

Ice Queen - Fell in love with this pattern when it was published this winter. I bought the yarn in the midst of online Christmas shopping but still haven’t begun. I think it’s because I want to buy some beads and don’t know where to go. I looked it up on Yahoo! Local and might drive to a few of them this week to check out their bead selection. Other than that, I'm low on excuses.

I think I’m planning so heavily because I’m a bit nervous. I’m switching jobs at the end of the month and buying yarn and casting on for new projects are both therapeutic activities. Either way, I’ll have lots of WIPs to choose from when I want to pick up my pointy sticks!

In the meantime, I’ve been working almost exclusively on Classy Slip-Up Sock #2. I’ve been knitting it at work, digging it out at home, and am up to the leg. That really just means that I’ve finished the cuff, but it seems like a bit of a milestone since the project sat idly for so long. My current goal is to finish it before it gets warm out (you never know when that will be since it was positively frigid last week and today it's a high of 65 degrees).